Magic wand methods, apparatuses and systems

ABSTRACT

Methods, apparatuses, systems, and storage media for creating, discovering, and/or resolving spells using a wand are provided. In embodiments, a computing device or a wand may detect one or more gestures and sensors in the wand may generate sensor data representative of the one or more gestures. The one or more gestures may be movements performed using the wand. The computing device or wand may convert the sensor data representative of the one or more gestures into a spell sequence. The wand may transmit the spell sequence to a computing device, and receive, from the computing device, a spell output based on the spell sequence and a wand position. The wand may also determine the spell output based on the spell sequence without transmitting the spell sequence to another device. Other embodiments may be described and/or claimed.

FIELD

The present disclosure relates to the field of interactive computing,and in particular, to apparatuses, methods, storage media, and systemsutilizing a wand in interactive games.

BACKGROUND

Entertainment systems, video game consoles, and/or other like gamingdevices typically provide interactive gaming experiences wherein usersinteract with a game and/or other users by providing one or more inputsand receiving feedback in response to the provided inputs. The inputsmay be provided using an input device or controller, such as joysticks,keyboards, computer mice, touchscreens, motion sensing devices, and thelike. The feedback may be received using one or more output devices,such as through display devices, audio devices, haptic feedback devices,and the like.

Gaming devices and their controllers may provide some interactive gamingexperiences. However, many of these gaming devices are limited toproprietary platforms, which often require the use of platform-specificcontrollers. The term “platform” may refer to the specific electroniccomponents and software that provide a gaming experience. Furthermore,many of these gaming devices and gaming experiences may be limited tospecific physical and/or virtual environments. Moreover, many of thesegaming devices do not provide users with the ability to interact withother devices, such as non-proprietary gaming devices and/or non-gamingdevices. Therefore, typical gaming devices and/or platforms may belimited in their ability to offer an immersive gaming experience.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Embodiments will be readily understood by the following detaileddescription in conjunction with the accompanying drawings. To facilitatethis description, like reference numerals designate like structuralelements. Embodiments are illustrated by way of example, and not by wayof limitation, in the figures of the accompanying drawings.

FIGS. 1A-1D illustrate various gaming environments in which variousexample embodiments described in the present disclosure may beimplemented;

FIG. 1E illustrates a data flow diagram for devices operating in agaming environment, in accordance with various example embodiments;

FIG. 2 illustrates the components of a wand, in accordance with variousexample embodiments;

FIG. 3A illustrates the components of a wand module, in accordance withvarious example embodiments;

FIG. 3B illustrates the components of a computing device, in accordancewith various example embodiments;

FIG. 3C illustrates the components of a wand module, in accordance withvarious example embodiments;

FIG. 4 illustrates a process for spell creation, in accordance withvarious embodiments;

FIG. 5 illustrates a process for spell discovery, in accordance withvarious embodiments; and

FIGS. 6A-6B illustrate a process for spell resolution, in accordancewith various example embodiments.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

In the following detailed description, reference is made to theaccompanying drawings which form a part hereof wherein like numeralsdesignate like parts throughout, and in which is shown by way ofillustrated embodiments that may be practiced. It is to be understoodthat other embodiments may be utilized and structural and/or logicalchanges may be made without departing from the scope of the presentdisclosure. Therefore, the following detailed description is not to betaken in a limiting sense, and the scope of embodiments is defined bythe appended claims and their equivalents.

Various operations may be described as multiple discrete actions and/oroperations in turn, in a manner that is most helpful in understandingthe claimed subject matter. However, the order of description should notbe construed to imply that the various operations are necessarily orderdependent. In particular, these operations may not be performed in theorder of presentation. Operations described may be performed in adifferent order than the described embodiments. Various additionaloperations may be performed and/or described operations may be omittedin additional embodiments.

For the purposes of the present disclosure, the phrase “A and/or B”means (A), (B), or (A and B). For the purposes of the presentdisclosure, the phrase “A, B, and/or C” means (A), (B), (C), (A and B),(A and C), (B and C), or (A, B and C). For the purposes of the presentdisclosure, the phrase “at least one of A and B” means (A), (B), or (Aand B).

The description may use the phrases “in an embodiment”, or “inembodiments”, which may each refer to one or more of the same ordifferent embodiments. Furthermore, the terms “comprising,” “including,”“having,” and the like, as used with respect to embodiments of thepresent disclosure, are synonymous.

As used herein, the term “logic”, “module”, and/or “circuitry” may referto, be part of, or include an Application Specific Integrated Circuit(ASIC), an electronic circuit, a processor (shared, dedicated, or group)and/or memory (shared, dedicated, or group) that execute one or moresoftware or firmware programs, a combinational logic circuit, and/orother suitable components that provide the described functionality. Insome embodiments, the modules and/or circuitry may be implemented in, orfunctions associated with the modules and/or circuitry may beimplemented by, one or more software or firmware modules in combinationwith one or more hardware devices.

Also, it is noted that example embodiments may be described as a processdepicted as a flowchart, a flow diagram, a data flow diagram, astructure diagram, or a block diagram. Although a flowchart may describethe operations as a sequential process, many of the operations may beperformed in parallel, concurrently, or simultaneously. In addition, theorder of the operations may be re-arranged. A process may be terminatedwhen its operations are completed, but may also have additional stepsnot included in the figure(s). A process may correspond to a method, afunction, a procedure, a subroutine, a subprogram, and the like. When aprocess corresponds to a function, its termination may correspond to areturn of the function to the calling function and/or the main function.

As disclosed herein, the term “memory” may represent one or morehardware devices for storing data, including random access memory (RAM),magnetic RAM, core memory, read only memory (ROM), magnetic disk storagemediums, optical storage mediums, flash memory devices and/or othermachine readable mediums for storing data. The term “computer-readablemedium” may include, but is not limited to, memory, portable or fixedstorage devices, optical storage devices, wireless channels, and variousother mediums capable of storing, containing or carrying instruction(s)and/or data.

Furthermore, example embodiments may be implemented by hardware,software, firmware, middleware, microcode, hardware descriptionlanguages, or any combination thereof. When implemented in software,firmware, middleware or microcode, the program code or code segments toperform the necessary tasks may be stored in a machine or computerreadable medium. A code segment may represent a procedure, a function, asubprogram, a program, a routine, a subroutine, a module, program code,a software package, a class, or any combination of instructions, datastructures, program statements, and the like.

As used herein, the term “computing device” may be considered synonymousto, and may hereafter be occasionally referred to, as a client, clientdevice, mobile, mobile unit, mobile device, mobile terminal, mobilestation, mobile user, user equipment (UE), user terminal, subscriber,user, remote station, access agent, user agent, receiver, etc., and maydescribe a remote user of network resources in a communications network.Furthermore, the term “computing device” may include any type of wiredand/or wireless device such as consumer electronics devices, desktoppersonal computers (PCs), laptop PCs, smart phones, tablet PCs, wearablecomputing devices, personal digital assistants (PDAs), and/or any otherlike physical computing device that is able to connect to acommunications network.

As used herein, the term “network element”, may be considered synonymousto and/or referred to as a networked computer, networking hardware,network equipment, router, switch, hub, bridge, gateway, and/or otherlike device. The term “network element” may describe a physicalcomputing device of a wired or wireless communication network that isconfigured to host a client device and the like. Furthermore, the term“network element” may describe equipment that provides radio basebandfunctions for data and/or voice connectivity between a network and oneor more users.

As used herein, the term “game” may considered synonymous to and/orreferred to as a quest, sport, event, activity, role-playing games(RPG), simulation, etc. A game may be any sequence of events with orwithout a defined set of rules, wherein the sequence of events and/orrules may be defined by a game operator and/or other like entity.Typically games have a beginning and a conclusion, but in someembodiments, a game may not have either a beginning or an ending.

Example embodiments disclosed herein provide apparatuses, systems, andmethods for providing immersive interactive gaming experiences. Exampleembodiments introduce a “magic” wand that may be used for interactingwith a game or immersing oneself within a gaming environment. Exampleembodiments also utilize already existing output devices and/or alreadyexisting gaming platforms to provide gaming feedback to a user. Theexample embodiments differ from typical gaming platforms or systems thatprovide interactive gaming experiences because the typical gamingplatforms are usually tied to a specific proprietary platform, and/ortied to a specific physical or virtual environment. For example, videogame platforms require proprietary video game consoles, which oftenrequire proprietary video game controllers, video game motion detectors,and video game software to run on the video game console. Additionally,most video game platforms do not provide for interoperability with orbetween competing platforms. By way of another example, laser tag, whichis a recreational activity where players attempt to score points bytagging targets, typically requires a hand-held infrared-emittingtargeting device to be used within a defined physical environment, suchas an indoor or outdoor arena. Many laser tag systems useinfrared-sensitive targets are commonly worn by each player and may beintegrated within the arena in which the game is played, which may allowlaser tag participants to interact with one another and their definedenvironment. However, typical laser tag systems are limited to theirspecific physical environment and usually require users to employ thesame or similar infrared-emitting targeting devices. Additionally,although many laser tag systems and devices use hardware and embeddedsoftware to alter game parameters and/or provided varied game play,these typical laser tag systems usually only provide a single method fortagging targets, such as by pulling a trigger on a laser tag gun.

The example embodiments disclosed herein refer to a user interfacedevice/controller as a “wand”, which may refer to the general shapeand/or form of the user interface device. However, it should be notedthat the term “wand” is not meant to limit the user interface devicedisclosed herein to a specific shape or form. Indeed, other forms,shapes, and/or artistic representations of the user interface device maybe used. For example, the user interface device may be shaped, formed,or otherwise implemented as a scepter, a staff, a baton, a rod, a pen, asword, a sabre, a screwdriver, a glove, a ring, a bracelet, stuffed orplush toy, a baseball bat, a lacrosse stick, and/or any other likedevice that may impart directionality. Furthermore, the exampleembodiments disclosed herein refer to the environment in which the wandor user interface device is used as a “gaming environment” or“environment”. It should be noted that the user interface devicesdisclosed herein may be used for various activities other than games.For example, the user interface device may be implemented in toy guns,training guns, and the like for use in police and/or military trainingenvironments, such as urban operations (UO) exercises, militaryoperations in urban terrain (MOUT) exercises, and the like. By way ofanother example, the user interface device may be implemented in awearable device for use in commercial environments, such as a shoppingmall, a city's downtown region, or specific shops/stores. Moreover, theuser interface device described herein may be used for home automation,such as controlling one or more services associated with one or moresmart objects or “Internet of Things” (IoT) devices.

In various embodiments, the wand is a user interface that allows a userto initiate specific “spells”, which, according to various embodiments,may be triggers to one or more sequences, operations, and/or actions byinternal feedback/output devices and/or external feedback/outputdevices. For example, a user may perform an “unlock” spell bymanipulating a wand using various motions and/or gestures, which may beconverted into a spell sequence. The spell sequence may then be used todetermine that a smart lock is to unlocked, and state-changeinstructions (or “unlock” instructions in this example) may be sent tothe smart lock. In various embodiments, the wand may use one or morebuilt-in or associated sensors to collect data about an intended spell,spell direction, and/or spell intensity. In various embodiments, thecollected data may include spatial coordinates of the wand and/orchanges in the spatial coordinates captured by the one or more sensors,position information of the wand relative to one or more externaldevices (including other wands), and/or voice commands issued by a userof the wand. Examples of the one or more sensors include accelerometers,gyroscopes, magnetometers, microphones, and the like. In variousembodiments, the wand may also include a communications module,transmission circuitry, and/or other means of device communications sothat the wand may communicate the collected sensor data to a computingdevice, a gaming system, external output/feedback devices, and the like.The communications between the wand and the other devices may be by wayof radio-frequency (RF) communications methods, such as Bluetooth lowenergy (BLE) signaling, RF identification (RFID) signaling, infraredsignaling, WiFi signaling, and the like. In some embodiments, the wandmay send the data to an application running on a paired computingdevice, such as a smartphone, a desktop PC, a home/arena server, or anyother like dedicated device. The computing device, by way of theapplication, may analyze the data, determine the spell type, spelldirection, and/or spell intensity. The computing device, by way of theapplication, may then communicate with, or otherwise instruct one ormore feedback/output devices in the vicinity of the wand and/orcomputing device to activate in accordance with the determined spell.Furthermore, the computing device may also send information indicativeof the determined spell to a game accounting server or other likeback-end service to track a user's progress in an interactive gameand/or quest. In some embodiments, the computing device may include thecapabilities and/or functions of the back-end service. In someembodiments, the wand itself may include the capabilities and/orfunctions of the computing device, such that the wand itself maydetermine the spell type, spell direction, and spell intensity andinstruct one or more feedback/output devices in the vicinity of the wandto activate in accordance with the determined spell. In variousembodiments, the electronic components and software components of thewand may be housed in a “wand module”, which can be inserted in a largerhousing, which may allow for a variety of artistic representations ofthe “wand”. For example, the housing could be a hand-held device that isdepicted in various movies, television series, books, etc.

Referring now to the figures. FIGS. 1A-1C show gaming environments 100A,100B, and 100C (collectively referred to as “gaming environment 100”),respectively, in which a wand 125 may be used to activate one or moredevices 101-1 to 101-4, in accordance with various embodiments. As shownin FIGS. 1A-1C, gaming environment 100 may include devices 101-1 to101-4 (collectively referred to as “devices 101”), computing devices105A and 105B (collectively referred to as “computing devices 105” or“computing device 105”), beacon 110, network 115, accounting server 120,and wand 125A and 125B (collectively referred to as “wand 125”). FIG. 1Aillustrates an example embodiment of a single player gaming environment100A in which the wand 125A is coupled with computing device 105A; FIG.1B illustrates an example embodiment of a multiplayer gaming environment100B in which the wand 125A and 125B operate without coupled computingdevices 105A and 105B; and FIG. 1C illustrates an example embodiment ofa multiplayer gaming environment 100C in which a “wand duel” takes placebetween wand 125A and 125B coupled with computing devices 105A and 105B,respectively.

According to various embodiments, wand 125 may be any handheld devicethat provides a user with the ability to interact with one or moredevices in the gaming environment 100, such as devices 101 and/orcomputing devices 105. The wand 125 may include a communication module(e.g., communications module 330 as shown in FIGS. 3A and 3C), one ormore memory devices (e.g., memory 350 as shown in FIGS. 3A and 3C), oneor more processors (e.g., processor 310 as shown in FIGS. 3A and 3C),one or more sensors (e.g., sensors 306 as shown in FIGS. 3A and 3C), oneor more output/feedback devices (e.g., first devices 215 as shown inFIGS. 2, 3A, and 3C), and/or other like components (e.g., as shown inFIGS. 3A and 3C). Wand 125 may be designed to sequentially andautomatically carry out a sequence of arithmetic or logical operations;equipped to record/store digital data on a machine readable medium; andtransmit and receive digital data.

Wand 125 may include one or more sensors, such as an accelerometer,gyroscope, gravimeter, magnetometer, and/or another like devices thatare configured to measure and/or detect a motion, an acceleration,and/or an orientation of the wand 125. In such embodiments, wand 125 maybe configured to determine a magnitude and direction of an accelerationand/or motion of the wand 125, and convert the acceleration and/ormotion of the wand 125 into position and/or orientation information. Thechanges in the positions and/or orientations of the wand 125 may beindicative of one or more gestures performed by a user of the wand 125.The one or more sensors may be configured to detect the one or moregestures as sensor data. In various embodiments, the sensor data mayinclude or otherwise indicate one or more spatial coordinates (orchanges in spatial coordinates) for the positions and/or orientations ofthe wand 125. The sensor data may then be passed to a processor and/orspell module of the wand 125 to be converted into a spell sequence, orfor any other type of analysis and/or filtering. In this way, thepositions and/or orientations (or changes in the positions and/ororientations) may be used to determine a spell type, spell direction,spell intensity, etc. according to the various example embodimentsdescribed herein. In some embodiments, the one or more sensors mayinclude a microphone configured to obtain one or more voice commandsissued by a user of the wand 125. In such embodiments, the one or morevoice commands may be recorded and included with the spell sequence forspell determination. In some embodiments, the one or more sensors mayinclude one or more biometric sensors, such as an infrared heart ratemonitoring device, a fingerprint or handprint scanning device, an eyescanning device, an electromyography (EMG) device for detectingelectrical patterns associated with a user's muscular contractions, anelectroencephalograph (EEG) device for measuring and/or recordingelectrical signals produced by a user's brain, and the like. In suchembodiments, biometric data detected or sensed by the one or morebiometric sensors may be included with the spell sequence for spelldetermination, such that the user's heart rate, finger/hand print,muscular contractions, brainwaves, and the like may be included with thespell sequence for spell determination. Furthermore, in variousembodiments, the wand 125 may track a timing that one or more gesturesare performed. For instance, a spell may require specific sequences ortiming relationships in order to obtain a spell output. For example, aspell might require a button press followed by a bodily movement,followed by a voice command, etc., wherein all of the aforementionedgestures are required to be performed within 30 seconds. Additionally,in some embodiments, a spell may require that a bodily movement and avoice command start and complete within 200 milliseconds of each other.

In some embodiments, the one or more sensors may include one or moremotion capture devices that may be configured to capture motion bydetecting a change in position of a body relative to its surroundings,or by detecting a change in the surroundings relative to the body. Insuch embodiments, the motion capture devices may be configured tomeasure the strength and/or speed of a body's motion. In variousembodiments, the one or more sensors may include one or more opticalcameras and/or one or more thermographic (infrared) cameras, which maybe configured to form images using infrared radiation. Such infraredcameras may be similar to optical-lens cameras, which form images usingvisible light, but instead operate in wavelengths in the infrared rangeof the electromagnetic spectrum. In embodiments where the sensorsinclude one or more infrared cameras, the sensors may also include aninfrared projector and/or infrared laser projector, which may beconfigured to project an infrared beam at one or more targets and sensea reflection of the infrared beam being reflected off the one or moretargets.

In various embodiments, in addition to determining the orientation ofthe wand 125, the one or more sensors may be used to determine thedirectionality of the wand 125. The orientation of the wand 125 may bean angle of the wand 125 relative one or more objects, such as a bodypart of the user of the wand 125. The directionality may indicate adirection in which the wand is directed and/or being pointed by theuser. In this regard, the wand 125 may have a defined portion from whicha spell output is to be applied (or a region of effect (ROE) is to bedirected and/or focused). The defined portion may include, for example,a front portion or tip portion (e.g. tip portion 208 as shown in FIG. 2)from which the spell or “magic” is to emanate. Accordingly, in variousembodiments, the wand 125 may use the position and/or orientationinformation from the one or more sensors to distinguish one portion ofthe wand 125 from other portions of the wand.

In some embodiments, the one or more sensors may sense environmentalfactors, which may be included with the spell sequence and used todetermine a spell intensity and/or spell output. The environmentalfactors may include any information regarding an environment of thegaming environment 100, such as ambient lighting, surroundingelectromagnetic fields, and/or any other like biotic or abiotic factorssurrounding the wand 125.

As noted previously, the changes in the positions and/or orientations ofthe wand 125 may be indicative of one or more gestures performed by auser of the wand 125. The one or more gestures may include bodilymovements, voice commands, and/or other like inputs, such as pressing abutton 210 of the wand 125 and the like. The bodily movement gesturesmay include any action or movement of the wand 125 made by the user. Thebodily movement gestures can originate from any bodily motion or state,but because the wand 125 is typically embodied as a handheld device, theone or more gestures may originate from a hand of a user. Additionally,the bodily movement gestures may be based on a height and/or body partlengths of the user, which may be based on the accuracy of the spatialcoordinate data detected by the one or more sensors. For example, afirst user that makes a circular motion with an extended arm may yielddifferent spatial coordinate changes than a second user that makes asimilar circular motion with an extended arm, such as when the heightand and/or arm length of the first user are greater than the height andand/or arm length of the second user. In this instance, the circularmovement made by the first user may produce a larger circumference thana circumference of the circular movement made by the second user.Additionally, a bodily movement gesture can include not only movement ofthe wand 125, but may also be based on a body position established by auser. Furthermore, in various embodiments, the voice command gesturesmay include specific sounds or words that are pronounced by the user ofthe wand 125. It should be noted that the sounds or words do not have tobe previously known in any human language, but rather, the sounds orwords may only be required to be repeatable by the user. In variousembodiments, the wand 125 may be configured to record voice commandgestures, and communicate those recordings to the computing device 105for voice recognition. In other embodiments, the wand 125 may beconfigured to perform the voice recognition of the voice commandgestures. The voice recognition methods and systems are known orcommercially available, and are readily implemented by persons havingordinary skill in the art, particularly in light of the disclosureherein.

In various embodiments, wand 125 may include one or more feedback/outputdevices, which are internal to the wand 125, attached to a housing 205of the wand 125, and/or communicatively coupled with the wand 125 and/orcomputing device 105. The devices that are internal, attached, and/orcommunicatively coupled with the wand 125 and/or computing device 105may be referred to as “first devices”. The one or more first devices maybe used to provide feedback or other like indications as to whether aspell has been properly performed or not (within a certain margin oferror). The first devices may include one or more audio devices, one ormore light emitting diodes, one or more haptic feedback devices and/orone or more actuators, one or more heating elements, and the like. Insome embodiments, the first devices may include a display device and/ora projector. The wand 125 may instruct or otherwise activate the one ormore first devices by issuing one or more instructions or controlsignals to the one or more first devices, which are referred to hereinas “first instructions”. The first instructions may be defined by aspell output, which is associated with one or more spells, wherein thespell output indicates to issue the first instructions upon completionof an associated spell (within a certain margin of error). The spelloutput may also define or otherwise indicate a spell output intensity,which may be an intensity level at which to activate the one or morefirst devices. The first instructions and/or control signals mayinstruct and/or control the one or more first devices to output adesired audio output at a desired volume level and/or for a desiredplayback time when the one or more first devices include the one or moreaudio devices; emit a desired light sequence and/or illuminationlevel/intensity when the one or more first devices include the one ormore light emitting diodes; activate at least one of a vibration and amechanical motion at a desired intensity and/or for a desired period oftime when the one or more first devices include the one or more hapticfeedback devices, one or more actuators, and/or one or moretranscutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) devices; and heat thewand to a desired temperature when the one or more first devices includethe one or more heating elements. Furthermore, in various embodiments,the first instructions may indicate to turn off or shut down variousfunctions, such as shutting off one or more LEDs. In some embodiments,the first instructions may include sending (additional) game-relatedmessages to other users in the gaming environment 100 (e.g., “fireballfrom user A exploded at position (X,Y,Z) including 10 points damage toplayers B and C and/or devices within 5 meters of position (X,Y,Z)”).

As noted previously, the first devices may include devices that arecommunicatively coupled with the wand 125 and/or computing device 105.Such devices may include Bluetooth earpieces, headphones, and/orspeakers; a head-mounted (or helmet-mounted) display device; ahead-mounted (or helmet-mounted) augmented reality headset; and thelike. In embodiments, where the first instructions indicate to play anaudio output and/or a video output, the files associated with the audiooutput and/or video output may be stored in a computer-readable mediumof the computing device 105, stored in a computer-readable medium of thewand 125, and/or the output files may be streamed or otherwise providedto the computing device 105 and/or the wand 125 from a content provideron-demand, which may then be output via the communicatively coupledoutput device. Additionally in various embodiments, an audio output orvideo output (e.g., a sound effect, etc.) may indicate the success orfailure of the spell output. For example, one or more sound effects thatvary in tone, sequence, and/or amplitude may be used to indicate thelevel of success of the spell output. In some embodiments, theaudio/video output may include corresponding effects to indicatedifferent amounts of spell output intensities, such as by using afizzling sound and the like. In other embodiments, a sound effect may bea recorded or synthesized utterance, which may provide a message such as“Your spell has completed properly” or “Your spell has not completedproperly”. Furthermore, in various embodiments a haptic and/or visualresponse (e.g., vibration and/or LED illumination, etc.) may also begenerated from the wand 125 to be used in combination with one or moresound effects. Moreover, the first instructions (and/or the secondinstructions described herein) may indicate that a gesture wasincorrectly performed or missing from a spell sequence, the user hasinsufficient authorization to perform a spell (e.g., a wand 125 is notauthorized to perform the spell or obtain the spell output), theperformance of a spell was done at an unauthorized location and/orspatial coordinates, the user has insufficient game play property/pointsfor performing the spell or obtaining the spell output, the performanceof the spell is impossible (e.g., an “open door” spell is performed whenthere is no door proximate to the wand 125), a game play parameter itemin the gaming environment 100 is interfering with the spell (“fireballinhibitor prevents fireball spells in a particular room”), and the like.

Wand 125 may be configured to send/receive data to/from a computingdevice 105, one or more devices 101, and/or a network element (e.g.,accounting server 120, etc.) via a direct wireless connection and/or viaa network connection (e.g., network 115). For example, the wand 125 maydirectly connect with one or more devices via the direct wirelessconnection by using, for example, Bluetooth and/or BLE protocols, WiFiprotocols, Infrared Data Association (IrDA) protocols, ANT and/or ANT+protocols, and the like. In some embodiments, wand 125 may connect withone or more devices (e.g., devices 101 and/or computing device 105) vianetwork 115 in accordance with one or more wireless communicationsprotocols and/or one or more cellular phone communications protocols. Insuch embodiments, wand 125 may be configured to operate in accordancewith the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM), Enhanced DataGSM Environment (EDGE), wideband code division multiple access (WCDMA),code division multiple access (CDMA), time division multiple access(TDMA), Bluetooth, Wireless Fidelity (Wi-Fi) such as the Institute ofElectrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.11a, IEEE 802.11b, IEEE802.11g, IEEE 802.11ac, and/or IEEE 802.11n, voice over InternetProtocol (VoIP), Wi-MAX, Long Term Evolution (LTE), and/or any otherwireless communication protocols.

In various embodiments, by utilizing a direct wireless connection or anetwork connection, wand 125 may operate, control, or otherwise activateone or more external feedback/output devices (also referred to as“second devices” herein). Referring to FIGS. 1A-1C, the one or moreexternal feedback/output devices may include the devices 101 and/or thecomputing device 105. The one or more second devices may be used toprovide feedback or another like indication as to whether a spell hasbeen properly performed or not (within a certain margin of error). Thesecond devices may include one or more components of computing devices105 and/or other computing devices, one or more auxiliary devices, oneor more IoT devices, one or more audio devices, one or more displaydevices, one or more other wands 125, and the like. The wand 125 mayinstruct or otherwise activate the one or more second devices bycommunicating one or more instructions or control signals over thedirect wireless connection or via the network connection to the one ormore second devices (also referred to as “second instructions” herein).The second instructions may be defined by a spell output, which isassociated with one or more spells, wherein the spell output indicatesto issue the second instructions upon completion of an associated spell.The second instructions and/or control signals may instruct and/orcontrol the one or more second devices to execute desired program codewhen one or more second devices include the computing device 105 and/orone or more other computing devices; access one or more servicesassociated with one or more IoT devices when the one or more seconddevices include one or more IoT devices; output a desired audio outputwhen the one or more second devices include one or more audio devices;output a desired video output when the one or more second devicesinclude one or more display devices; and/or record a spell output whenthe one or more second devices include one or more other wands 125and/or one or more other computing devices 105. Furthermore, in variousembodiments, the second instructions may indicate to turn off or shutdown various functions, such as shutting off a video display, etc. Insome embodiments, the second instructions may include sending(additional) game-related messages to other users in the gamingenvironment 100 (e.g., “fireball from user A exploded at position(X,Y,Z) including 10 points damage to players and/or devices within 5meters of position (X,Y,Z)”). Moreover, the second instructions mayindicate that a gesture was incorrectly performed or missing from aspell sequence, the user has insufficient authorization to perform aspell (e.g., a wand 125 is not authorized to perform the spell or obtainthe spell output), the performance of a spell was done at anunauthorized location and/or spatial coordinates, the user hasinsufficient game play property/points for performing the spell orobtaining the spell output, the performance of the spell is impossible(e.g., an “open door” spell is performed when there is no door proximateto the wand 125), a game play parameter item in the gaming environment100 is interfering with the spell (“fireball inhibitor prevents fireballspells in a particular room”), and the like.

According to various embodiments, wand 125A may include or otherwise beassociated with a region of effect (ROE) 130A and wand 125B may includeor otherwise be associated with a region of effect (ROE) 130B(collectively referred to as “region of effect 130” or “ROE 130”). ROE130 defines an area in which a spell output is to be applied such thatone or more devices 101 within the ROE 130 are activated when a spell isperformed using the wand 125. In various embodiments, the ROE 130 isdetermined by the computing device 105 coupled with the wand 125 (e.g.,computing device 105A coupled with wand 125A as shown in FIGS. 1A-1C).In such embodiments, the computing device 105 may determine a shapeand/or size of the ROE 130, and determine whether one or more devices101 and/or other wands 125 are within the ROE 130 based on a position ofthe devices 101 and/or other wands 125. The positions of the one or moreother devices 101 and/or other wands 125 may be indicated by anidentifier or other like signal being broadcast by a device 101 and/orwand 125, and/or based on a position of the wand 125 relative to theposition of a device 101 and/or other wand 125. In other embodiments,the wand 125 may determine the shape and/or size of the ROE 130, anddetermine whether one or more devices 101 and/or other wands are withinthe ROE 130. In some embodiments, when multiple devices 101 and/or otherwands 125 are within the ROE 130, the computing device 105 and/or wand125 may activate issue second instructions to each device within the ROE130. In various embodiments, when multiple devices 101 and/or otherwands 125 are within the ROE 130, the computing device 105 and/or wand125 may determine a spell output target device based on a position ofthe wand 125 and/or an orientation of the wand 125. The spell outputtarget device may be a device to which the wand 125 is directed by theuser, which may be indicated by a portion from which the ROE 130emanates. Furthermore, in some embodiments, the spell output targetdevice may include multiple second devices while excluding other seconddevices within the ROE 130.

In various embodiments, the spell output intensity may be based on adistance between the wand 125 and a position of the spell output targetdevice, and/or the spell output intensity may be based on a position ofthe spell output target device within the ROE 130. The spell outputintensity may indicate an intensity at which the one or more seconddevices within the ROE 130 are to be activated. For instance, a devicethat is located relatively far from the wand 125 may be activated at alower intensity than a device that is located relatively close to thewand 125. By way of example, an audio device that is relatively far fromthe wand 125 may play a desired audio output at a lower volume and/ordecrease the volume over time, whereas when the audio device isrelatively close to the wand 125, the audio device may play the desiredaudio output at a higher volume. In various embodiments, spell outputintensity may also indicate a brightness level for a display deviceand/or a device including LEDs, may indicate a termination point of anaudio and/or video output that is before the audio and/or video output'sprescribed ending, may specify an amount to move an electro-mechanicaldevice, may indicate a game play properties/effects (e.g., damageamounts, health restoration amount, a virtual or physical on/off,open/close, and/or lock/unlock indication, physical dispense amount(vending machines, etc.) a virtual dispense amount for virtual property(points, health, damage loss, gold count, etc.)), and/or the like. Inthis way, the spell output may have an appearance of attenuation basedon the user's position within the gaming environment 100.

In some embodiments, device attributes may be used to determine a spelloutput and/or spell output intensity. The device attributes may indicatea device type and/or status of one or more peripheral devices and/orinternal components (e.g., processor speed, memory utilization, batterycharge amounts, etc.) of the wand 125. For example, the wand 125 and/orthe computing device 105 may determine that an amount of chargeremaining in a battery of the wand 125 is 50%, and the wand 125 and/orthe computing device 105 may then reduce the spell intensity output by50%.

Referring now also to FIG. 1D, the ROE 130 is defined by or otherwisehas a shape of a cone. In various embodiments, the cone may have an areathat is defined by a height h and a base radius r. In variousembodiments, the base may be in the shape of a circle or an ellipsishaving a radius r. However, in some embodiments, the ROE 130 may be in apyramidal shape such that the base is a square, rectangular or any otherquadrilateral shape. Additionally, although ROE 130 is shown by FIGS.1A-1D as having a conical shape, in various embodiments, ROE 130 mayhave a cylindrical shape or may have any other type of shape. As shown,an apex of the cone originates from a tip 208, but in some embodiments,the apex could originate from any other like portion of the wand 125.The area of the cone may be calculated using known equations oralgorithms for calculating the area and/or volume of a cone. However, itshould be noted that the height h, the radius r, and/or the shape of thebase may be based on a specific game being played, a specific gamingenvironment, a spell intensity associated with a user of the wand 125,and the like. For example, the height h and/or the radius r of the ROE130 may be predefined according to one or more game design criteria, andwhen the spell intensity is determined to be reduced by 50% due to abattery of the wand 125 having a 50% charge capacity, the values of theheight h and/or the radius r of the ROE 130 may be reduced by 50% or maybe reduced or otherwise adjusted according to some other game-relatedvalue/criteria/rules. By way of another example, the height h and/or theradius r of the ROE 130 may be predefined according to one or more gamedesign criteria, and when the spell intensity is determined to beincreased by 50% due to an auxiliary device being proximate to the wand125, the values of the height h and/or the radius r of the ROE 130 maybe increased by an amount indicated by an auxiliary device identifierand/or may be increased or otherwise adjusted according to some othergame-related value/criteria/rules.

According to various embodiments, computing devices 105 may be aphysical hardware computing device capable of communicating with a oneor more other hardware computing devices (e.g., wand 125, devices 101,accounting server 120, one or more associated databases (not shown), andthe like) via a communications interface, such that computing device 105is able to receive one or more signals and/or data streams from theother devices in the gaming environment 100. Computing devices 105 mayinclude a transmitter/receiver (or alternatively, a transceiver), one ormore memory devices, one or more processors, one or more sensors, and/orother like components. Computing devices 105 may be designed tosequentially and automatically carry out a sequence of arithmetic orlogical operations; equipped to record/store digital data on a machinereadable medium; and transmit and receive digital data via one or morenetwork devices. Computing devices 105 may include devices such asdesktop computers, laptop computers, mobile computing devices (e.g.,smart phones, tablet personal computers, wearable computing devices, ahandheld messaging device, a personal data assistant, an electronic bookreader, and the like), a home or local server, and/or any other physicalor logical device capable of recording, storing, and/or transferringdigital data via a connection to a network device.

In various embodiments, computing devices 105 may include a networkinterface (e.g., network interface 430 described with regard to FIG. 3B)configured to connect computing device 105 to one or more other deviceswirelessly via a transmitter and a receiver (or optionally atransceiver) and/or via a wired connection using a communications port.Computing devices 105 may be configured to send/receive data to/from oneor more other hardware computing devices, and/or network devices, suchas a router, switch, hub, or other like network devices, via the networkinterface using the wired connection and/or the wireless connection.Computing devices 105 may be configured to obtain a data (in the form ofa data stream, data packets, and/or other like messages) from a networkelement (e.g., accounting server 120) via the network interface, andutilize the data according to the various example embodiments describedherein. Computing devices 105 may communicate over the network 115 inaccordance with one or more wireless communications protocols and/or oneor more cellular phone communications protocols. For example, computingdevice 105 may be configured to operate in accordance with the GlobalSystem for Mobile Communications (GSM), Enhanced Data GSM Environment(EDGE), wideband code division multiple access (WCDMA), code divisionmultiple access (CDMA), time division multiple access (TDMA), Bluetooth,Wireless Fidelity (Wi-Fi) such as the Institute of Electrical andElectronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.11a, IEEE 802.11b, IEEE 802.11g, IEEE802.11ac, and/or IEEE 802.11n, voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP),Wi-MAX, Long Term Evolution (LTE), and/or any other “wireless”communication protocols, including RF-based, optical, and so forth.

Computing devices 105 may include or be otherwise associated withvarious input and output/feedback devices to enable user interactionwith the computing device 105 and/or peripheral components or devicesassociated with the computing device 105 by way of one or more userinterfaces or peripheral component interfaces. The user interfaces mayinclude, but are not limited to a physical keyboard or keypad, atouchpad or touchscreen, display device(s), speakers, microphones, imagesensors, haptic feedback devices and/or one or more actuators, and thelike. Peripheral component interfaces may include, but are not limitedto, a non-volatile memory port, a universal serial bus (USB) port, anaudio jack, and a power supply interface. Furthermore, the computingdevice may to enable user interaction with peripheral or other likeexternal devices utilizing one or more wireless communicationsprotocols, such as Bluetooth protocols, WiFi protocols, IrDA protocols,ANT and/or ANT+ protocols, etc. Using the one or more wirelesscommunications protocols, the computing devices 105 may connect with, orotherwise utilize devices 101. The devices 101 may be output/feedbackdevices, such as display devices (e.g., TVs or “smart TVs”, a computingdevice and associated displays, augmented reality head-mounted (orhelmet-mounted) devices, etc.) and/or audio devices (e.g., Bluetoothearpiece or headphones, speakers, etc.), “Internet of Things” (IoT)devices (e.g., automated sensors, motors, etc.), and/or auxiliarydevices (which are described in detail elsewhere). Furthermore, thecomputing devices 105 may connect or otherwise couple with the wand 125by way of the one or more wireless communications protocols.

Computing device 105 may be equipped with location (or alternatively“geolocation”), positioning, and/or navigation circuitry, such as aGlobal Positioning System (“GPS”) receiver, as well as software toconvert received GPS signals into a location and/or position (withinsome margin of error). In various embodiments, alternate positioningsystems may be employed, such as wireless network signal-strength-basedindoor positioning system (IPS), hybrid systems combining global andlocal positioning systems, and/or other like positioning and/or locationdetection systems. However, in various embodiments, geolocation and/orpositioning information may come from other sources including an IPaddress, Wi-Fi and/or Bluetooth MAC address, radio-frequencyidentification (“RFID”), WiFi connection location, GSM/CDMA cell IDs,and the like. Computing devices 105 may include one or more sensors,such as an accelerometer, gyroscope, gravimeter, magnetometer, and/oranother like devices that are configured to measure and/or detect amotion, an acceleration, and/or an orientation of the computing devices105. In such embodiments, the computing devices 105 may be configured todetermine a magnitude and direction of an acceleration and/or motion ofthe computing device 105, and convert the acceleration and/or motion ofthe computing device 105 into position and/or orientation information.The positions and/or orientations (or changes in the positions and/ororientations) may be used to determine a spell type, spell direction,spell intensity, etc. according to the various example embodimentsdescribed herein. For example, the computing device 105 may use its ownposition and/or orientation data, position and/or orientation data ofone or more devices 101 that the computing device 105 has determined, incombination with any position and/or orientation data included with aspell sequence in order to determine a spell type, spell direction,spell intensity, etc.

Computing devices 105 may be configured to run, execute, or otherwiseoperate one or more applications. The applications may include nativeapplications, web applications, and hybrid applications. The nativeapplications may be used for operating the computing device 105, such asusing a camera or other like sensor of the computing device 105, GPSfunctionality of the computing device 105, an accelerometer of thecomputing device 105, cellular phone functionality of the computingdevice 105, and other like functions of the computing device 105. Nativeapplications may be platform or operating system (OS) specific. Nativeapplications may be developed for a specific platform usingplatform-specific development tools, programming languages, and thelike. Such platform-specific development tools and/or programminglanguages may be provided by a platform vendor. Native applications maybe pre-installed on computing devices 105 during manufacturing, orprovided to the computing device 105 by an application server (e.g.,accounting server 120) via a network (e.g. network 115). Webapplications are applications that load into a web browser of thecomputing device 105 in response to requesting the web application froma service provider (e.g., a web server that may be associated withaccounting server 120). The web applications may be websites that aredesigned or customized to run on a mobile device by taking into accountvarious mobile device parameters, such as resource availability, displaysize, touchscreen input, and the like. In this way, web applications mayprovide an experience that is similar to a native application within aweb browser. Web applications may be any server-side application that isdeveloped with any server-side development tools and/or programminglanguages, such as PHP, Node.js, ASP.NET, and/or any other liketechnology that renders HTML. Hybrid applications may be a hybridbetween native applications and web applications. Hybrid applicationsmay be a standalone, skeletons, or other like application containersthat may load a website within the application container. Hybridapplications may be written using website development tools and/orprogramming languages, such as HTML5, CSS, JavaScript, and the like.Hybrid applications use browser engine of the computing device 105,without using a web browser of the computing device 105, to render awebsite's services locally. Hybrid applications may also access mobiledevice capabilities that are not accessible in web applications, such asthe accelerometer, camera, local storage, and the like. According tovarious embodiments, the various example embodiments for creating,resolving, and/or discovering one or more spells performed by the wand125 as described herein, such as the processes 400-600, may beimplemented as a native application, a web application, and/or a hybridapplication. Such an application may be included in the wand 125according to various example embodiments.

According to various embodiments, devices 101 may be any object, device,sensor, or “thing” that is embedded with hardware and/or softwarecomponents that enable the object, device, sensor, or “thing” tocommunicate with another device (e.g., computing devices 105, accountingserver 120, another device 101, etc.) over a network (e.g., network115). The devices 101 may be the same or similar to the “second devices”as described herein, and the devices 101 may also be referred to as“second devices 101”. In some embodiments, the device 101 maycommunicate with other devices with little or no user or humanintervention, such as when the device 101 is an IoT device. In thisregard, devices 101 may include a transmitter/receiver (oralternatively, a transceiver), one or more memory devices, and/or one ormore processors. Furthermore, devices 101 may be embedded with orotherwise include a transmitter or other like device that broadcasts anidentification signal. In various embodiments, the identification signalmay be a radio-based signal, such as a Wi-Fi signal, BLE signal, anactive RFID signal, an infrared signal, and the like. According tovarious embodiments, the identification signal may comprise one or moredata packets or data frames, where the data packets or data framesinclude a unique identifier associated with the device 101 transmittingthe identification signal. In various embodiments, the unique identifier(or alternatively, “identifier” or “identification information”) mayinclude a universally unique identifier (UUID), an electronic productcode (EPC), a media access control address (MAC address), an InternetProtocol (IP) address, an Apache QPID address, and/or any other likeidentification information. It should be noted that one or more of thedevices 101 may be manufacturer, developed, and/or deployed in thegaming environment 100 by different device manufacturers.

In various embodiments, devices 101 may be output/feedback devices, suchas display devices, audio devices, IoT devices, and the like. Devices101 that are IoT devices may include any type of sensor, meter, or otherlike device that can capture and/or record data associated with anevent. For instance, in various embodiments, IoT devices may be bioticsensors and/or devices, such as monitoring implants, biosensors,biochips, and the like. Additionally, IoT devices may be abiotic sensorsand/or devices, such as autonomous sensors and/or meters, Machine TypeCommunications (MTC) devices, machine to machine (M2M) devices, and thelike. An event may be any occurrence of an action, such as a temperaturechange, a change in data such as reaching a data threshold, a game-playpoint/property/inventory level/amount change, a heart rate, astate/position/orientation change of a device, and the like. In variousembodiments, an event may be detected by one or more IoT devices basedon sensor outputs, timer values, user actions, messages from an acomputing device, and the like. Once data associated with an event iscaptured and recorded by the IoT device or other like device 101, thecaptured data may be relayed through the network 115 and reported to aservice provider (e.g., an operator of the accounting server 120),computing device 105, and/or another one of the devices 101. The serviceprovider and/or game operator (e.g., the accounting server 120), a userof the computing device 105A and/or the wand 125A, a user of thecomputing device 105B and/or the wand 125B, and/or another device 101may take an appropriate action based on a notification of the event(e.g., calculate a score with respect to a game or quest, and the like,perform a spell, activate/deactivate a device and/or component of adevice, etc.). In various embodiments, devices 101 may connect with orotherwise communicate with the computing device 105 and/or accountingserver 120 via a direct wireless connection and/or via network 115. Insuch embodiments, the data associated with an event may be reported tothe computing device 105 and/or accounting server 120 for the purposesof spell determination and/or immersive game play as described herein.It should be noted that the devices 101 may be configured to reportdata/events on a period or cyclical basis, and/or based on a desiredevent that is captured and recorded by a device 101.

In various embodiments, the computing device 105 and/or wand 125 mayreceive from one or more devices 101 data associated with a capturedevent and the computing device 105 and/or wand 125 may physicallycontrol the devices 101 by transmitting instructions or other likecontrol signals to the device 101. The instructions and/or controlsignals may instruct and/or control the devices 101 to execute desiredprogram code when one or more of the devices 101 include one or moreother computing devices; access one or more services associated with oneor more IoT devices when one or more of the devices 101 include one ormore IoT devices; output a desired audio output when one or more of thedevices 101 include one or more audio devices; output a desired videooutput when one or more of the devices 101 include one or more displaydevices; and/or record a spell output when one or more of the devices101 include one or more other wands 125 and/or one or more othercomputing devices 105.

In various embodiments, such as when the second devices 101 are IoTdevices, the second devices 101 may include one or moreelectro-mechanical components which allow the second device 101 tochange its state, position, and/or orientation. These electro-mechanicalcomponents may include one or more motors, step motors, actuators,wheels, thrusters, propellers, claws, clamps, hooks, and/or other likeelectro-mechanical components. In such embodiments, the second devices101 may be configured to change its state, position, and/or orientationbased on one or more captured events and/or instructions or controlsignals received from the computing device 105 and/or wand 125. Forexample, in embodiments where a second device 101 is an actuator thatopens/closes a window, the actuator may change its state (e.g., fullyopen, fully closed, or partially open/closed) based on instructions fromthe computing device 105, wand 125, and/or accounting server 120. Insuch embodiments, the instructions to change the state of the actuatormay be issued from the computing device 105, wand 125, and/or accountingserver 120 based on whether or not a spell was determined to have beenperformed correctly or not. In some embodiments, proximity of the wand125 to an associated device 101 may be required in order for the spellto have an effect. For example, an “open door” spell may have no effectunless the wand 125 is within desired distance from the door to beopened. It should be noted that a performance of one or more actions(e.g., the collection/reporting of data, altering a state, position,and/or orientation, etc.) by one or more devices 101 may be referred toas a “service”. The devices 101 may be grouped according to functionsthat they may perform, where one or more of the functions are associatedwith one or more services. Furthermore, in various embodiments, thedevices 101 may also communicate data associated with one or more eventsto the accounting server 120 via a network connection, wherein theaccounting server 120 may track the progress of a game or otherwiseadjust a user's profile according to spell outputs performed by thedevices 101.

In various embodiments, one or more of the second devices 101 may be“auxiliary devices”. The auxiliary devices may include the same orsimilar components as the IoT devices discussed herein (e.g.,transmitter/receiver, processor(s), memory device(s), etc.). However, invarious embodiments the auxiliary devices serve to alter, adjust, orotherwise modify a spell and/or spell intensity. For example, in someembodiments, the auxiliary device may amplify, diminish, or delay aneffect of one or more spell outputs. Additionally, the auxiliary devicemay alter a spell output to include one or more additional firstinstructions and/or second instructions, such as obtaining and playingan audio output when a spell for illuminating an LED is performed. Itshould be noted that in some embodiments, an auxiliary device mayamplify a spell intensity of a first spell while diminishing the effectof a second spell. In various embodiments, a spell and/or spellintensity may be modified or adjusted when an auxiliary device is withina desired region surrounding the wand 125, or when the auxiliary deviceis otherwise proximate to the wand 125. In this regard, in variousembodiments, the auxiliary devices may be in the form of a wearabledevice, such as a bracelet, ring, medallion, hat, glove, and the like,while in some embodiments, the auxiliary devices may have a form thatallows the auxiliary device to attach itself to a housing 205 of thewand 125. However, the form and/or shape of the auxiliary devices may bebased on one or more design choices.

In various embodiments, the proximity of an auxiliary device to the wand125 may be based on position information contained in an auxiliarydevice identifier or other like signal that is broadcast by theauxiliary device, which may be obtained by the computing device 105and/or the wand 125 by scanning of a region surrounding the wand 125 foran auxiliary device signal that is broadcast by the auxiliary device.The auxiliary device identifier may be obtained by the computing device105 and/or the wand 125, which may then determine the position of theauxiliary device relative to the wand 125 in a similar manner asdiscussed herein, such as by using IPS and/or triangulation methods.

The auxiliary device identifier may also indicate a desired alterationfor a spell output and/or a desired alteration or adjustment to a spelloutput intensity. For example, the auxiliary device identifier mayindicate an amount to increase/decrease area of the ROE 130, such as byadjusting the height h and/or the radius r, etc. By way of anotherexample, the auxiliary device identifier may indicate that a spelloutput may include additional audio and/or video outputs to beplayed/displayed with an audio and/or video output associated with agiven spell and/or a location from which the additional audio/videooutputs may be obtained, such as a webpage address, a memory location,and/or other like location information. By way of yet another example,the auxiliary device identifier may indicate that a spell output mayyield additional game related points/property within a game, or maydecrease another player's points/property by a specified amount when aspell is performed in the presence of another user (see e.g., FIG. 1C).In some embodiments, the desired alteration to the spell output or spelloutput intensity may be based on a number of times that a spell has beencast using the auxiliary device, and/or based on any other likeindication indicating a number of times that the auxiliary device hasbeen used. The number of times that the auxiliary device has been usedmay be factored into a game or quest, wherein a game operator (e.g., anoperator of accounting server 120) or other like entity may limit thenumber of times that an auxiliary device may be used and/or may diminishthe effect that an auxiliary device has based on the amount of usage ofthe auxiliary device. To this end, in various embodiments, the auxiliarydevice may include a counter, which indicates a number of uses or anumber of spell alterations, and the auxiliary device may provide thecounter value in the auxiliary device identifier. In such embodiments,the auxiliary device may increment or decrement the counter each time aspell is cast (i.e., after execution of a spell output). The computingdevice 105 and/or the wand 125 may then determine whether the spelloutput may be altered using the auxiliary device based on the auxiliarydevice counter value, such that, when the auxiliary device counter valuehas reached an alteration threshold, the alteration to the spell outputmay be deemed to have expired. In some embodiments, the auxiliary devicecounter may be loaded with a (or alternatively “predefined”) value, andthe counter may be decremented each time a spell is cast with theauxiliary device. In such embodiments, the alteration threshold may bezero. In other embodiments, the auxiliary device counter may be set atzero and incremented each time a spell is cast with the auxiliarydevice. In such embodiments, the alteration threshold may be a desired(or alternatively “predefined”) integer that is greater than zero, andthe alteration may be diminished or otherwise adjusted based on theinteger value. For example, the counter value may be set at 10, thespell output intensity may be increased by 100% when the auxiliarydevice is used a first time (counter vale of 10), and the spell outputintensity may be increased by 90% when the auxiliary device is used asecond time (counter vale of 9), and so forth. Moreover, in someembodiments, a determined distance or proximity of the auxiliary devicemay be used to alter the spell output and/or spell output intensity. Forexample, in some embodiments, an auxiliary device may increase a sizeand/or shape of the ROE 130 by a first factor when the auxiliary deviceis attached to the wand 125, and the auxiliary device may increase asize and/or shape of the ROE 130 by a second factor when the auxiliarydevice is at a specified distance from the wand 125, wherein the firstfactor is greater than the second factor.

It should be noted that in various embodiments, the auxiliary devicesmay not include the auxiliary counter. In such embodiments, theaccounting server 120, the computing device 105, and/or the wand 125 mayinclude auxiliary device counters, or similar functionality, to trackthe usage of corresponding auxiliary devices. In such embodiments, theaccounting server 120, the computing device 105, and/or the wand 125 mayobtain the auxiliary device identifier via a direct wireless connectionor a network connection, and may adjust a user profile and/orincrement/decrement an auxiliary device counter accordingly.

According to various embodiments, beacon 110 may be a network element ora transmitting/receiving device configured to provide communicationservices and positioning services to various devices (e.g., devices 101,computing device 105, and/or wand 125) operating within a gamingenvironment 100 or a communications network (e.g., an enterprise privatenetwork, virtual private network, local area network (LAN), a virtuallocal area network (VLAN), and/or any other like computer network). Thebeacon 110 may be a wired or wireless access point, a router, a switch,a hub, and/or any other like network device that allows computingdevices to connect to a network. In some embodiments, the beacon 110 mayinclude one or more processors, a network interface, one or moretransmitters/receivers connected to one or more antennas, and computerreadable media. The one or more transmitters/receivers may be configuredto transmit/receive data signals to/from one or more devices 101 and/orcomputing devices 105. The beacon 110 may process and/or route datapackets according to one or more communications protocols, such asEthernet, Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP), High Level Data Link Control(HDLC), Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4), Internet Protocol version 6(IPv6), and/or any other like protocols. The beacon 110 may employ oneor more network interfaces in order to allow devices 101 and/orcomputing devices 105 to connect to network 110, such as Ethernet, FibreChannel, G.hn or ITU-T, 802.11 or Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and/or any otherlike network connection interfaces. In various embodiments, beacon 110may be a low-powered transmitter/receiver that may be used to notifyvarious devices of their position relative to one or more other devices.In such embodiments, the beacon 110 may utilize BLE proximity sensingmethods to transmit an identifier to devices within a vicinity of thebeacon 110.

In various embodiments, the beacon 110 may provide the wand 125,computing devices 105, and/or devices 101 with a position of the beacon110 such that the wand 125, computing devices 105, and/or devices 101may determine their own position relative to one or more other devicesby way of triangulation. In such embodiments, an exact geolocation orposition may not be necessary for the performance of a spell output aslong as the various devices in the gaming environment 100 may determinetheir own position relative to one or more other devices in the gamingenvironment 100. One method of triangulation may include the computingdevice 105A performing a received signal strength indication (RSSI)calculation of one or more signals generated by one or more otherdevices (e.g., the computing device 105B and/or other computing devices105, one or more devices 101, etc.) and a RSSI calculation of one ormore signals generated by the beacon 110. Another method oftriangulation may include the computing device 105A and/or the wand 125Aobtaining a RSSI calculation performed by computing device 105B and/orwand 125B of one or more signals generated by another device and/or aRSSI calculation of one or more signals generated by the beacon 110,which may then be shared with the computing device 105A. Another methodof triangulation may include the beacon 110 performing a RSSIcalculation of one or more signals generated by multiple devices in thegaming environment 100, which may then be shared with the computingdevices 105 and/or the wands 125 in the gaming environment 100. Theaforementioned RSSI calculations may be performed by the beacon 110, thewands 125, and/or the computing devices 105 according to know methods.Additionally, instead of, or in addition to using the RSSI of thesignals generated by the various devices in the gaming environment 100,example embodiments may also utilize other information associated withthe one or more signals, such as a path loss measurement, packet delaytime, a signal to noise ratio, a measure of throughput, a jitter,latency, a round trip time (RTT), a number of interrupts, anout-of-order delivery of data packets, and/or other like parameters.Furthermore, any of the aforementioned triangulation methods may becombined to determine a device's position relative to one or more otherdevices in the gaming environment 100. As such, in various embodiments,more position and/or orientation information may become available as anumber of devices in a gaming environment 100 increases. In someembodiments, only the RSSI of a proximate device is used instead of oneor more of the aforementioned triangulation methods, such as by definingthat a signal strength of a second device 101 must be greater than athreshold to indicate that the computing device 105 and/or the wand 125is within some desired distance from the second device 101. Moreover,directional signal reception or/and transmission of one or moredirectional antennas may be also used to determine orientation of thevarious devices in gaming environment 100. As discussed previously, oneor more gestures may be performed to obtain one or more spell outputs.In some embodiments, one or more gestures may be designed to facilitatethe orientation calculation, such as when a user is required tomanipulate the wand 125 in a defined manner and/or at a defined positionin order to obtain the spell output. For example, a quest or game may bedefined such that a player is required to move a wand from side-to-sideso in or around a geocaching device wherein the side-to-side motionwould place the wand in the middle of a coverage sector of a directionalantenna of the geocaching device. In this case, directional antenna ofthe wand 125 and/or a directional antenna of the geocaching device mayestimate an approximate wand orientation relative to the geocachingdevice.

In some embodiments, voice commands issued by one or more users may beused to determine a position of one or more device. For example, in agaming environment 100 that has an electronically controlled window,which may be configured to turn opaque or transparent based on appliedelectrical charge. A “Transparency” spell might be used to make thewindow transparent, wherein a user pointing the wand 125 at the windowand issuing a voice command of “Transparify” or other such utterance.Because the utterance relates to windows, as opposed to door locks,etc., the voice command may provide additional information or anotherlike indication of a region in which a wand 125 is located. In someembodiments, dead reckoning may be used to maintain orientation and/orposition of the wand 125 and/or computing device 105. Dead reckoning mayinclude a process of calculating a device's current position by using apreviously determined position (or fix), and adjusting that positionbased on known and/or estimated speeds over elapsed time and a projectedmovement pattern. Dead reckoning methods may be used to estimate a roughor general region in which one or more devices are location. It shouldbe noted that relatively low accuracy of the orientation and positionmay be needed, for example, to indicate that dueling wands 125 (as shownin FIG. 1C) may each be pointing in each other's direction.Additionally, since the dead reckoning may provide relatively lowaccuracy, the dead reckoning calculations may be used to complementand/or to periodically adjust the other positioning and/or triangulationmethods described herein.

It should also be noted that, in addition to the various positiondetermination methods and/or triangulation methods discussed above, whenthe gaming environment 100 is an arena or other like defined region orvenue, additional mechanisms may be added to the gaming environment 100for position determination, such as one or more cameras or other likesensors, one or more stationary targets, and/or floor-mounted pressuresensors. The cameras and/or sensors (optical and infra-red) may be usedin combination with known vision recognition algorithms, which maydetermine a relative distance of the user (either the user's body or thecomputing device 105) to a known position within the field of view. Invarious embodiments, simplify processing may be achieved using one ormore targets, such as UV fluorescent or IR-reflecting “dots”. The one ormore targets may be stationary landmarks, or wands 125, computing device105, and/or the user may include easily identifiable visual ornon-visible markers. In some embodiments, Real-Sense Technology®developed by Intel® may be employed to further enhance position and/ororientation determination.

According to various embodiments, network 115 may be any network thatallows computers to exchange data. Network 115 may include one or morenetwork elements (not shown) capable of physically or logicallyconnecting computers. The network 115 may include any appropriatenetwork, including an intranet, the Internet, a cellular network, alocal area network (LAN), a personal network or any other such networkor combination thereof. Components used for such a system can depend atleast in part upon the type of network and/or environment selected.Protocols and components for communicating via such a network are wellknown and will not be discussed herein in detail. Communication over thenetwork 115 may be enabled by wired or wireless connections, andcombinations thereof.

According to various embodiments, accounting server 120 may be one ormore hardware computing devices that may include one or more systemsand/or applications for providing one or more services. The accountingserver 120 may include one or more processors, one or more memorydevices and/or computer readable storage medium, and one or more networkinterfaces. Additionally, accounting server 120 may be a single physicalhardware device, or may be physically or logically connected with othernetwork devices, such that the accounting server 120 may reside on oneor more physical hardware devices. Moreover, accounting server 120 maybe connected to, or otherwise associated with one or more data storagedevices (not shown).

The accounting server 120 may be any device capable of receiving andresponding to requests from one or more client devices (e.g., computingdevices 105, wand 125, and/or devices 101) across a computer network(e.g., network 115) to provide one or more services. In variousembodiments, the services may include accounting for, or otherwiseoperating an immersive gaming experience. In such embodiments, theaccounting server 120 may alter or adjust a user profile associated witha user of the wand 125. The user profile may indicate game criteria orparameters associated with the user in connection with a game or quest,or in relation to multiple users playing one or more games or quests.The accounting server 120 may account for or otherwise track game playpoints/property and/or game play effects, such as virtualproperty/points tallies (including points, health, damage loss, goldcount, power levels, “magical power”, etc.), a virtual or physicalon/off, open/close, and/or lock/unlock indication, physical dispenseamounts, virtual dispense amounts, and/or the like. In some embodiments,the casting of a spell may decrease the casting user's game playpoints/property by a desired amount of game play points/property and/ormay decrease another user's game play points/property by a desiredamount of game play points/property. In some embodiments, one or morespells may be defined by a game operator to require a desired amount ofgame play points/property (e.g., “magical power”, points, and/or thelike) in order to cast the one or more spells or perform the spelloutputs associated with those spells. In various embodiments, the gameplay properties may be represented as a numerical value that isaccounted for by the accounting server 120. The user's magical powervalue may increase or decrease based on other factors, such has thepassage of time, completing quests, proximity of devices 101, etc.Additionally, in some embodiments, a game operator may specify spellsthat may be used during a game and/or exclude other spells from beingused during that game. In various embodiments, the accounting server 120may track time-based conditions, such as the number of times during atime period that a spell has been performed, restricting a spellperformance to a desired number of time or during desired times of aday, etc. In various embodiments, the accounting server 120 may trackand/or account for multiplayer conditions, such as determining whether aspell is properly performed, which may require the performance of one ormore gestures by one or more other users. For example, a spell mayrequire a first user to perform a first bodily movement and utter afirst voice command, followed by a second user performing a secondbodily movement and uttering a second voice command. In otherembodiments, the user may be required to perform their gesturesconcurrently.

Furthermore, in various embodiments, the accounting server may alsotrack prerequisite conditions defined by a game. For example, a gameoperator may define that a user must complete some prerequisite task inorder to perform one or more spells and/or obtain one or more spelloutputs. In some embodiments, the prerequisite task may includeactivating one or more second devices 101. In such embodiments, theaccounting server 120 may communicate with the one or more seconddevices 101 to obtain event data recorded by the one or more seconddevices 101 to determine whether the prerequisite task has beencompleted by the wand 125 and/or computing device 105. For example, theprerequisite task may indicate that the user must complete some physicalexercise or submit information via a web based user interface.Furthermore, the accounting server 120 may account for third party(e.g., parent, commercial entity, etc.) controls, wherein a third partymay be required to authorize a spell to be used. In some embodiments,restrictions to spell usage may further modify the various conditionslisted above. Additionally, in some embodiments, a spell may berestricted to be performed only on specific wands 125, such as a premiumupgraded wand 125, a user's wand 125 that is associated with a serviceor gaming subscription, and the like. In some cases, a game operatorand/or an authorized third party may nullify a spell and/or a spelloutput, which may result in a loss of points, status, or othergame/quest progress.

It should be noted that in various embodiments, one or more spell mayrequire coordination among the multiple users in a gaming environment100. For example, in a wand duel game (as illustrated by FIG. 1C), thetwo computing devices 105A and 105B may be required to coordinate witheach other to determine a specific timing and/or order that spells arecast by each user. In some embodiments, the accounting server 120 mayprovide the spell coordination between the two computing devices 105Aand 105B. If the accounting server 120 is not involved with thecoordination between users, the accounting server 120 may be responsiblefor final spell processing and resolution. The spell processing andresolution may include decrementing a user's available power level(virtual and/or physical) and/or a power level amount required for acertain spell. In some embodiments, the computing devices 105 mayperform the spell processing and resolution, and may report the resultsof the spell processing and resolution to the accounting server 120.However, in some embodiments, messages related to spell processing andresolution may be sent directly between the two computing devices 105Aand 105B and/or sent indirectly between the two computing devices 105Aand 105B via the back-end service (e.g., accounting server 120) and/orvia a network connection.

For adjusting the user profile and/or operating a game or quest, theaccounting server 120 may also perform or facilitate user setup and playregistration, including associating a specific wand 125 with authorizedusers, initiate and control software and/or firmware updates of theelements or devices within the gaming environment 100, record theresults associated with one or more games or quests, provide requesteduser authentication credentials, allow for recording new spellsassociated with the wand 125, provide content management, provide userinterfaces and/or control elements for setting up new games/questsand/or modifying existing spells and/or games/quests, and (optionally)perform computationally intensive tasks.

In providing one or more game-related and/or non-game-related services,the accounting server 120 may be able to generate content such as text,graphics, audio, and/or video to be transferred to computing device 105,which may be served to the wand 125 and/or the one or more devices 101by way of a web server (not shown) in the form of HTML, XML, MPEG-DASH,and/or any other appropriate structured language. The handling of allrequests and responses, (e.g., requests for item information and theinformation provided in response) as well as the delivery of contentbetween the computing devices 105 and/or wand 125 and the accountingserver 120 may be handled by the web server. The accounting server 120may include an operating system that may provide executable programinstructions for the general administration and operation of accountingserver 120, and may include a computer-readable medium storinginstructions that, when executed by a processor of the applicationserver 120, may allow the accounting server 120 to perform its intendedfunctions. Suitable implementations for the operating system and generalfunctionality of the servers are known or commercially available, andare readily implemented by persons having ordinary skill in the art,particularly in light of the disclosure herein. Furthermore, it shouldbe understood that the accounting server 120 may not be required and theapplications and software components discussed herein may be executed onany appropriate device or host machine.

As shown in FIGS. 1A-1D, only two computing devices 105A and 105B, twowands 125A and 125B, a single accounting server 120, and four devices101 are present. However, according to various embodiments, any numberof computing devices, any number of second devices, any number ofservers, and/or any number of databases (not shown) may be present.Additionally, in some embodiments, accounting server 120 and/or one ormore databases may be virtual machines and/or they may be provided aspart of a cloud computing service. In various embodiments, accountingserver 120 and one or more databases may reside on one physical hardwaredevice, and/or may be otherwise fully integrated with one another. Thus,the depiction of the illustrative gaming environments 100 in FIGS. 1A-1Dshould be taken as being illustrative in nature, and not limited to thescope of the disclosure.

FIG. 1E illustrates a data flow diagram for the various devicesoperating in a gaming environments 100A-B, in accordance with variousexample embodiments. FIG. 1E illustrates the communications between thewand 125, an auxiliary device 101-1, a second device 101-2, thecomputing device 105, and the accounting server 120, as described withreference to FIGS. 1A-1C. It should be noted that in various embodimentsthe second device 101-2 may be replaced by another wand 125 (e.g., wand125B).

Referring to FIG. 1E, at operation 1103, the computing device 105 mayobtain a user profile and/or a plurality of spells from the accountingserver 120. The user profile and/or the plurality of spells may beindicative of a game that the user of the wand 125 is playing or desiresto play. Each of the plurality of spells may be associated with adesired spell sequence and one or more spell outputs. In variousembodiments, the plurality of spells may be stored as an indexed tableor other like database structure in a memory device of the computingdevice 105 or in cloud storage associated with the computing device 105.Such a database may be queried by the computing device 105 according toknown methods. Subsequently or simultaneously to operation 1103, atoperation 1105 the wand 125 detects one or more gestures being performedby a user of the wand 125.

At operation 1105, the wand 125 may generate a spell sequence based onthe detected one or more gestures. At operation 1115, the computingdevice 105 may obtain a device identifier (ID) or other like signal froma device 101 within an ROE 130 of the wand 125. For example, as shown inFIG. 1A, which shows an example of a quest gaming environment 100A, atoperation 1115, the computing device 105 may obtain a device identifierfrom device 101-2. By way of another example, as shown in FIG. 1B, whichshows an example of a tagging gaming environment 100C, at operation1115, the computing device 105A associated with wand 125A may obtain adevice identifier from device 101-2, while the computing device 105Bassociated with wand 125B may obtain a device identifier from device101-4. By way of yet another example, as shown in FIG. 1C, which showsan example of a wand duel that may occur in either gaming environment100A or 100B, at operation 1115, the computing device 105A associatedwith wand 125A may obtain a device identifier from wand 125B, while thecomputing device 105B associated with wand 125B may obtain a deviceidentifier from wand 125A.

At operation 1120, the computing device 105 may obtain an auxiliarydevice identifier (ID) from an auxiliary device 101-1. According tovarious example embodiments, the auxiliary device ID may indicate toincrease a size of the ROE 130. At operation 1125, the spell sequencegenerated at operation 1110 is sent to the computing device 105. Itshould be noted that in various embodiments, operations 1115, 1120, and1125 may be performed in an alternate order than shown, and/oroperations 1115, 1120, and 1125 may be performed substantiallysimultaneously. At operation 1130, the auxiliary device 101-1 maydecrement/increment its auxiliary device counter. It should be notedthat operation 1130 may be performed at any time after the auxiliarydevice ID is obtained by the computing device 105, such as after a spelloutput is performed at one of operations 1155, 1160, 1165, and/or 1175.

At operation 1135, the computing device 1135 may determine a spell basedon the spell sequence. In various embodiments, the computing device 105may compare the spell sequence with the defined spell sequences of theplurality of spells to find or otherwise determine a matching spell.Once the computing device 105 determines the matching spell, thecomputing device 105 may determine the spell output associated with thematching spell.

At operation 1140, the computing device 105 may determine a spell outputintensity and/or spell output adjustment based on the auxiliary deviceID. In various embodiments, the spell output intensity may also be basedon the information from the user profile and/or one or more gameparameters associated with the game that the user is playing.

At operation 1145, the computing device 105 may determine a position ofthe wand 125 relative to one or more other devices. For example, thecomputing device 105 may scan the gaming environment 100A/B for signalsthat are broadcast by the devices 101, which may include one or moredata packets, wherein the data packets may include an identifier orother like identifying information, such as a device name (e.g., serialnumber), device type, position information, and/or other likeinformation. The computing device 105 may then extract the positioninformation from the received data packets. In some embodiments, thecomputing device may obtain positioning information from the beacon 110,or may use one or more of the aforementioned triangulation methods todetermine the positions of the devices 101 relative to the wand 125.

At operation 1150, computing device 105 may determine, based on thepositions of the one or more devices relative to the wand 125, a sizeand/or area of the ROE 130 and whether one or more devices 101 arewithin the ROE 130. For example, as shown in FIGS. 1A-1B, device 101-2is within the ROE 130A of wand 125A, which may be based on the auxiliarydevice 101-1 extending a range of the ROE 130A. By way of anotherexample, as shown in FIG. 1C, wand 125B is within the ROE 130A of wand125A, which may be based on the auxiliary device 101-1 extending a rangeof the ROE 130A, whereas the wand 125A is not within the ROE 130B ofwand 125B, which may be due to wand 125B not being coupled with anauxiliary device.

At operation 1155, the computing device 105 may instruct first device(s)of the wand 125 to activate in accordance with the defined spell outputdelineated by the matching spell. The instructions to the first devicesmay be referred to as first instructions. In various embodiments, thefirst instructions may indicate to activate one or more internalcomponents of the wand 125, such as one or more LEDs, one or more audiodevices, one or more haptic feedback devices, one or more heatingelements, and the like. The first instructions may include the spelloutput intensity level determined at operation 1140. The spell outputintensity level may indicate a LED brightness level, color scheme,and/or sequence; a haptic feedback vibration strength and/or duration;and audio output volume and/or duration; a desired temperature leveland/or heating during, etc. At operation 1165, the wand 125 may activatethe first devices according to the first instructions. The firstinstructions may activate according to the spell output intensity levelincluded in the first instructions.

At operation 1160, the computing device 105 may instruct seconddevice(s) associated with the wand 125 to activate in accordance withthe defined spell output delineated by the matching spell. Theinstructions to the second devices may be referred to as secondinstructions. In various embodiments, the second instructions mayindicate to activate one or more external feedback/output devices. Forexample, according to the example embodiment shown by FIG. 1A, thesecond instructions may indicate to activate device 101-2, which iswithin the ROE 130A of wand 125A. By way of another example, accordingto the example embodiment shown by FIG. 1C, the second instructions mayindicate to one or more first devices of wand 125B because wand 125B iswithin the ROE 130A of wand 125A. From the perspective of the wand 125A,the wand 125B is treated as an external device. Thus, wand 125B and theinternal components of the wand 125B may be considered to be seconddevice(s) according to the perspective of wand 125A. In suchembodiments, the computing device 105A may transmit the secondinstructions to the computing device 105B via a network connectionand/or a direct wireless connection. The computing device 105B may thentransmit the second instructions from computing device 105A to the wand125B for activation. In some embodiments, the computing device 105B mayconvert the second instructions from computing device 105A into firstinstructions for wand 125B such that the second instructions from thecomputing device 105A appear to be first instructions from the computingdevice 105B. At operation 1175, the device 101-2 in FIG. 1A (or the wand125B in FIG. 1C) may be activated according to the second instructions.The second instructions may include the spell output intensity leveldetermined at operation 1140. The spell output intensity level mayindicate a desired audio output volume and/or duration, a desired videooutput volume, brightness, and/or duration, a state change level oramount, etc. When the second device 101 is another wand, such as thewand 125B shown in FIG. 1C, the second instructions and the spell outputintensity level may be the same or similar as the first instructions andspell output intensity level discussed above.

At operation 1170, the computing device 105 may transmit an instruction(also referred to as “third instructions”) to adjust or otherwise alterthe user profile. At operation 1180, the accounting server 1180 mayadjust the user's profile in accordance with the third instructions. Insome embodiments, the computing device 105 may update, adjust, and/oralter the user profile, and then transmit the updated user profile tothe accounting server 120 to be applied against, or otherwise stored inassociation with, a game or quest.

It should be noted that according to various embodiments, the operationsdescribed above with respect to computing device 105 (e.g., spelldetermination, spell output intensity determination, positiondetermination, etc.) may be performed by the wand 125, which is shown bythe example embodiment of FIG. 1B and discussed in detail with regard toFIG. 3C.

FIG. 2 illustrates the components of a wand 125, in accordance withvarious example embodiments. As shown, the wand 125 includes a wandmodule 200, a housing 205, and input device 210, and first device 215.

According to various embodiments, the wand module 200 may include thevarious modules and circuitry to perform various functions according tothe example embodiments described herein (see the discussion with regardto FIGS. 1A-1E and 3A-3C). To this end, the wand module 200 may includea communication module (e.g., communications module 330 as shown inFIGS. 3A and 3C), one or more memory devices (e.g., memory 350 as shownin FIGS. 3A and 3C), one or more processors (e.g., processor 310 asshown in FIGS. 3A and 3C), one or more sensors (e.g., sensors 306 asshown in FIGS. 3A and 3C), one or more output/feedback devices (e.g.,first devices 215 as shown in FIGS. 2, 3A, and 3C), and/or other likecomponents (e.g., as shown in FIGS. 3A and 3C).

According to various embodiments, the housing 205 may be any device orapparatus that is used to physically contain or otherwise include thewand module 200, one or more components of the wand 125 (e.g., inputdevice 210 and/or first device 215). Housing 205 may be manufactured outof various materials and/or fibers, including metal, plastic, glass,rubber, wood, and/or any other like materials that are natural and/orsynthetic. In various embodiments, housing 205 may be formed intovarious sizes and/or shapes based on one or more game design criteria orother like design choices, such as a game type or style, gamingenvironment or location, user demographics (e.g., age, gender, etc.),environmental conditions in which the wand 125 may be located (e.g.,outside vs. inside), and/or other like criterion.

The housing 205 may be shaped, formed, or otherwise implemented as awand, a scepter, a staff, a baton, a rod, a pen, a sword, a sabre, ascrewdriver, a glove, a ring, a bracelet, stuffed or plush toy, abaseball bat, a lacrosse stick, a gun, and/or any other like device thatmay impart directionality. As shown, housing 205 also includes tipportion 208. In various embodiments, the one or more sensors included inthe wand module 200 may be used to determine the directionality of thewand 125 in order to distinguish the tip portion 208 from the otherportions of the housing 205. In this way, a user of the wand 125 mayexperience that “magic” or a spell output may be applied to a device inwhich the wand is directed by the user (i.e., when the user points thetip portion 208 at the device 101 or other wand 125).

Furthermore, housing 205 may be formed such that one or more auxiliarydevices may attach to the housing. In some embodiments, auxiliarydevices may attach to housing 205 using one or more attachmentcomponents (not shown). The one or more attachment components mayinclude a magnetic component (i.e., any material, or combinations ofmaterials, that attracts other permanent magnetic materials and/or anyferromagnetic materials), an adhesive component (i.e., any substanceapplied to a surface of at least two materials that binds them togetherand resists separation), and the like. In various embodiments, the oneor more one or more attachment components may include one or moreimplements, such as hooks, clamps, fasteners, and the like. Furthermore,in some embodiments, the housing 205 may include one or more openings(not shown) configured to receive one or more protrusions of anauxiliary device, or the housing 205 may include one or more protrusions(not shown) configured to be received by one or more openings of anauxiliary device.

According to various example embodiments, the input device 210 may beany physical device that enables a user of the wand 125 to interact withthe wand 125. For example, the input device 210 may by a button, atouchscreen device, a biotic sensor, and the like. In some embodiments,the input device 210 may be a peripheral component interface designed toprovide interaction between the computing device 105 and one or moreperipheral components. User interfaces may include, but are not limitedto a physical keyboard or keypad, a touchpad, a speaker, a microphone,infrared heart rate monitoring device, an eye scanning device, afingerprint or handprint scanning device, an EEG device, haptic feedbackdevices including one or more actuators and/or one or more TENS devices,etc. Peripheral component interfaces may include, but are not limitedto, a non-volatile memory port, a universal serial bus (USB) port, anaudio jack, and a power supply interface. It should be noted that inputdevice 210 may be optional, and in various embodiments, the input device210 may be omitted from the wand 125.

According to various example embodiments, the first device 215 may beany physical device that provides an output or feedback in response toone or more first instructions issued by the wand module 200. The firstdevice 215 may be used to provide feedback or another like indication asto whether a spell has been properly performed or not (within a certainmargin of error). As shown, the first device 215 may be an array of LEDsor other like illumination device(s). Although FIG. 2 shows that thefirst device 215 is located in the tip portion 208, in some embodiments,other portions of the housing 205 may include glowing/illuminationdevices to provide visual feedback. Additionally, the first device 215and/or other like illumination devices in housing 205 (not shown) mayprovide room-level illumination (e.g., a flashlight mode). Furthermore,in various embodiments, the wand module 200 and/or the housing 205 mayinclude one or more first devices 215, such as one or more audiodevices, one or more haptic feedback devices or one or more actuators,one or more heating elements, and the like. In some embodiments, thefirst devices 215 may include a display device and/or a projector.

FIG. 3A illustrates the components of wand module 200, in accordancewith various example embodiments. As shown, wand module 200 may includefirst devices 215, battery 305, sensors 306, input/output (I/O)interface 307, processor 310, device interface module 315, bus 320, I/Obus 325, communication module 330, and memory 350. In some embodiments,computing devices 105 may include many more components than those shownin FIG. 3A. However, it is not necessary that all of these generallyconventional components be shown in order to disclose the exampleembodiments.

Memory 350 may be a hardware device configured to store an operatingsystem 360 and program code for one or more software components, such as(optionally) an operating system (not shown), spell module 300, deviceinterface module 315, and/or (optionally) one or more other applications(not shown). Memory 350 may be a computer readable storage medium thatgenerally includes a random access memory (RAM), read only memory (ROM),a flash memory device, a solid state disk (SSD), a secure digital (SD)card, and/or other like storage media capable of storing and recordingdata. The program code, modules, and/or software components may also beloaded from a separate computer readable storage medium into memory 350using a drive mechanism (not shown). Such separate computer readablestorage medium may include a memory card, memory stick, removable flashdrive, sim card, and/or other like computer readable storage medium (notshown).

During operation, memory 350 may include an (optionally) operatingsystem, spell module 300, device interface module 315, and/or(optionally) one or more other applications (not shown). The operatingsystem may manage computer hardware and software resources and providecommon services for computer programs. The operating system may includeone or more drivers, such as a first devices drivers, sensor drivers,battery drivers, and/or any other like drivers that provide an interfaceto hardware devices thereby enabling the spell module 300, the deviceinterface module 315, and/or any other applications to access hardwarefunctions without needing to know the details of the hardware itself.The operating system may be a general purpose operating system or anoperating system specifically written for and tailored to the wandmodule 200. In embodiments where the operating system is not present,the device interface module 315 may provide the interface to the varioushardware devices of wand module 200.

Device interface module 315 may be one or more software modulesconfigured to interact with the various hardware components of the wandmodule 200 (e.g., first devices 215, battery 305, sensors 306, andinput/output devices via I/O interface 307, etc.). In variousembodiments, the device interface module 315 may obtain data from theone or more hardware components (e.g., sensor data), and provide thedata to the spell module 300 and/or other applications (not shown) forprocessing. In various embodiments, the device interface module 315 mayobtain first instructions via the communication module 330, and transmitor otherwise issue the first instructions the first instructions tooutput devices, such as the first devices 215, one or more first devices215 communicatively connected via the I/O interface, one or more firstdevices 215 communicatively connected via the communications module 330.

Processor 310 may be configured to carry out instructions of a computerprogram by performing the basic arithmetical, logical, and input/outputoperations of the system. The processor 310 may include a single-coreprocessor, a dual-core processor, a triple-core processor, a quad-coreprocessor, one or more digital signal processors (DSPs),application-specific-integrated-circuits, field programmable gate arrays(FPGAs), and/or the like. The processor 310 may perform a variety offunctions for the wand 125 and may process data by executing programcode, one or more software modules, firmware, middleware, microcode,hardware description languages, and/or any other like set ofinstructions stored in the memory 350. The program code may be providedto processor 310 by memory 350 via bus 320, one or more drive mechanisms(not shown), and/or via communication module 330. In order to performthe variety of functions and data processing operations, the programcode, modules, and/or software components may be executed by theprocessor 310. On execution by the processor 310, the processor 310 maycause wand module 200 to perform the various operations and functionsdelineated by the program code, modules, and/or software components.

For example, in various embodiments, the wand module 200 may includevarious modules configured to operate (through hardware and/or software)to obtain, from the sensors 306, sensor data that is indicative of oneor more gestures performed using the wand 125, and generate or otherwisedetermine a spell sequence based on the sensor data as described herein.The one or more modules may include the spell module 300 and the deviceinterface module 315. The various modules may be loaded into the memory350 and executed by the processor 310. Once the various modules areloaded into memory 350 and executed by the processor 310, the processor310 may be configured to cause wand module 200 to control the sensors306 to determine or detect various gestures, wand positions and/or wandorientations, and the like; receive or obtain from the device interfacemodule 315, via the sensors 306, the sensor data representative of thegestures; convert the sensor data representative of the one or moregestures into a spell sequence; provide the spell sequence to thecommunication module 330 to transmit the spell sequence to a computingdevice 105; and issue first instructions to the first devices 215 basedon a spell output received from the computing device 105 via thecommunication module 330. In various embodiments, converting the sensordata into a spell sequence may include converting the one or morespatial coordinates (or spatial coordinate changes) into a markuplanguage, a hypertext language, a text file, firmware, middleware,microcode, hardware description language, or any combination thereofthat may be executed or otherwise interpreted by the processor 410 ofthe computing device 105 (see e.g., description of FIG. 4) or processor310 of the wand module 200 (see e.g., description of FIG. 3C). Whilespecific modules are described herein, it should be recognized that, invarious embodiments, various modules may be combined, separated intoseparate modules, and/or omitted.

Bus 320 may be configured to enable the communication and data transferbetween the processor 310 and memory 350. Bus 320 may comprise ahigh-speed serial bus, parallel bus, internal universal serial bus(USB), Front-Side-Bus (FSB), and/or other suitable communicationtechnology for transferring data between components within wand module200 and/or between wand module 200 and other like devices. I/O bus 325may be configured to enable the communication and data transfer betweenthe components of wand module 200. In various embodiments, the I/O bus325 may be the same or similar as bus 320, while in some embodiments,I/O bus 325 may comprise a PCI bus, a PCI-Express (PCI-e) bus, a SmallComputer System Interface (SCSI) bus, and the like.

Communication module 330 may be a computer hardware component thatconnects wand module 200 to a computing device 105 via a direct wirelessconnection and/or via a computer network (e.g., network 115).Communication module 330 may connect with one or more devices via thedirect wireless connection by using, for example, Bluetooth and/or BLEprotocols, WiFi protocols, Infrared Data Association (IrDA) protocols,ANT and/or ANT+ protocols, and the like. In some embodiments,communication module 330 may connect the wand module 200 with one ormore devices (e.g., devices 101 and/or computing device 105) via network115 in accordance with one or more wireless communications protocolsand/or one or more cellular phone communications protocols. In suchembodiments, communication module 330 may be configured to operate inaccordance with the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM),Enhanced Data GSM Environment (EDGE), wideband code division multipleaccess (WCDMA), code division multiple access (CDMA), time divisionmultiple access (TDMA), Bluetooth, Wireless Fidelity (Wi-Fi) such as theInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.11a, IEEE802.11b, IEEE 802.11g, IEEE 802.11ac, and/or IEEE 802.11n, voice overInternet Protocol (VoIP), Wi-MAX, Long Term Evolution (LTE), and/or anyother “wireless” communication protocols. Communication module 330 mayoperate in conjunction with a wireless transmitter/receiver and/ortransceiver (not shown) that is configured to operate in accordance withone or more wireless standards described above. The communication module330 may also include one or more network interfaces, one or more virtualnetwork interfaces configured to operate with spell module 300 and/orother like modules or applications.

First devices 215 may be physical hardware devices configured to providefeedback or another like indication as to whether a spell has beenproperly performed or not. As shown, the first device 215 may be one ormore LEDs or other like illumination device. In various embodiments, theone or more first devices 215 may include one or more audio devices, oneor more haptic feedback devices and/or one or more actuators, one ormore heating elements, and the like. In some embodiments, the firstdevices 215 may include a display device and/or a projector.

I/O interface 307 may be a computer hardware component that providescommunication between the wand module 200 and one or more other devices.The I/O interface 307 may include one or more user interfaces designedto enable user interaction with the wand module 200 and/or peripheralcomponent interfaces designed to provide interaction between thecomputing device 105 and one or more peripheral components. Userinterfaces may include, but are not limited to a physical keyboard orkeypad, a touchpad, a speaker, a microphone, infrared heart ratemonitoring device, a fingerprint or handprint scanning device, an EEGdevice, haptic feedback devices including one or more actuators and/orone or more TENS devices, etc. Peripheral component interfaces mayinclude, but are not limited to, a non-volatile memory port, a universalserial bus (USB) port, an audio jack, and a power supply interface. Itshould be noted that the I/O interface 307 may be an optional element,and thus, in some embodiments the I/O interface 307 may be omitted fromthe wand module 300.

Sensors 306 may include one or more sensing devices to determineposition information (or alternatively “position data”), orientationinformation (or alternatively “orientation data”), environmentalconditions, and/or like information related to the wand module 200. Insome embodiments, the sensors 306 may include, but are not limited to,an accelerometer, gyroscope, gravimeter, magnetometer, proximity sensor,ambient light sensor, and a positioning unit, such as global positioningsystem (GPS) circuitry, and the like.

Battery 305 may be a device configured to provide electrical power tothe wand module 200 using one or more electrochemical cells includingnickel-cadmium (NiCd), nickel-zinc (NiZn), nickel metal hydride (NiMH),and lithium-ion (Li-ion) cells. In some embodiments battery 305 maycomprise a supercapacitor device and/or an ultracapacitor device, whilein other embodiments, the battery 305 may comprise a fuel cell device.The battery 305 may communicate battery information to the deviceinterface module 315 when queried by the device interface module 315.The battery information may indicate whether the wand module 200 isconnected to a power source, whether the connected power sources iswired or wireless, whether the connected power sources is an alternatingcurrent charger or a USB charger, a current voltage of the battery, aremaining battery capacity as an integer percentage of total capacity(with or without a fractional part), a battery capacity inmicroampere-hours, an average battery current in microamperes, aninstantaneous battery current in microamperes, a remaining energy innanowatt-hours, whether the battery is overheated, cold, dead, or has anunspecified failure, and the like. The device interface module 315 mayprovide the battery information to the spell module 300 and/or the wandcommunication module 330 to provide the battery information to thecomputing device 105 to determine the spell output intensity based onthe amount of charge indicated by the battery information.

FIG. 3B illustrates the components of the computing devices 105, inaccordance with various example embodiments. As shown, computing devices105 may include processor 410, bus 420, network interface 430,input/output (I/O) interface 440, and memory 350. In some embodiments,computing devices 105 may include many more components than those shownin FIG. 3B, such as a display device, an input device (e.g., a physicalkeyboard, a touch screen, etc.), one or more image sensors, atransmitter/receiver (or alternatively, a transceiver), a mobile videocard and/or graphics processing unit (GPU), and other like components.However, it is not necessary that all of these generally conventionalcomponents be shown in order to disclose the example embodiments.

Memory 450 may be a hardware device configured to store an operatingsystem 460 and program code for one or more software components, such asspell determination module 465 and/or one or more applications 400 and500. Memory 450 may be a computer readable storage medium that generallyincludes a random access memory (RAM), read only memory (ROM), a flashmemory device, a solid state disk (SSD), a secure digital (SD) card,and/or other like storage media capable of storing and recording data.The program code and/or software components may also be loaded from aseparate computer readable storage medium into memory 450 using a drivemechanism (not shown). Such separate computer readable storage mediummay include a memory card, memory stick, removable flash drive, simcard, and/or other like computer readable storage medium (not shown). Insome embodiments, software components may be loaded into memory 450 vianetwork interface 430, rather than via a computer readable storagemedium.

During operation, memory 450 may include operating system 460, spelldetermination module 465, which includes spell generation process 400,spell discovery process 500, and spell determination process 600.Operating system 460 may manage computer hardware and software resourcesand provide common services for computer programs. Operating system 460may include one or more drivers, such as a display driver, cameradriver, audio drivers, and/or any other like drivers that provide aninterface to hardware devices thereby enabling operating system 460,spell determination module 465, spell generation process 400, spelldiscover process 500, and/or spell determination application 600 toaccess hardware functions without needing to know the details of thehardware itself. The operating system 460 may be a general purposeoperating system or an operating system specifically written for andtailored to the computing device 105.

The spell determination module 464 may be a collection of softwaremodules and/or program code (including the processes 400-600) thatenables the computing devices 105 to define one or more spells withassociated spell outputs, and determine when a spell has been performedusing the wand 125. Spell determination module 465 may be a nativeapplication, a web application, or a hybrid application. In embodimentswhere the spell determination module 465 is a web or hybrid application,spell determination module 465 may be rendered in or otherwise executedusing a web browser of the computing device 105. In various embodiments,a game operator may develop one or more other applications to interactwith the spell determination module 465. The processes 400-600 may be acollection of software modules and/or program code that enables thecomputing device 105 to operate according to the various exampleembodiments as discussed with regard to FIGS. 4-6B.

Processor 410 may be configured to carry out instructions of a computerprogram by performing the basic arithmetical, logical, and input/outputoperations of the system. The processor 410 may include a single-coreprocessor, a dual-core processor, a triple-core processor, a quad-coreprocessor, and/or the like. The processor 410 may perform a variety offunctions for the computing devices 105 and may process data byexecuting program code, one or more software modules, firmware,middleware, microcode, hardware description languages, and/or any otherlike set of instructions stored in the memory 450. The program code maybe provided to processor 410 by memory 450 via bus 420, one or moredrive mechanisms (not shown), and/or via network interface 430. In orderto perform the variety of functions and data processing operations, theprogram code and/or software components may be executed by the processor410. On execution by the processor 410, the processor 410 may causecomputing devices 105 to perform the various operations and functionsdelineated by the program code/modules, and/or software components.

For example, in various embodiments, the computing devices 105 mayinclude various modules configured to operate (through hardware and/orsoftware) to define one or more spells with associated spell outputs,and determine when a spell has been performed using the wand 125. Thevarious modules may include the spell determination module 465, whichincludes the processes 400-600 (described with regard to FIGS. 4-6B).The various modules may be loaded into memory 450 and executed by theprocessor 410. Once the various modules are loaded into memory 450 andexecuted by the processor 410, the processor 310 may be configured toperform the processes 400-600 as discussed with regard to FIGS. 4-6B.While specific modules are described herein, it should be recognizedthat, in various embodiments, various modules and/or processes may becombined, separated into separate modules and/or processes, and/oromitted. Additionally, in various embodiments, one or more modulesand/or processes may be implemented on separate devices, in separatelocations, or distributed, individually or in sets, across multipleprocessors, devices, locations, and/or in cloud-computingimplementations.

Bus 420 may be configured to enable the communication and data transferbetween the components of computing device 105. Bus 420 may comprise ahigh-speed serial bus, parallel bus, internal universal serial bus(USB), Front-Side-Bus (FSB), and/or other suitable communicationtechnology for transferring data between components within computingdevice 105 and/or between computing device 105 and other like devices.In some embodiments, the computing device 105 may include an I/O bussuch as a PCI bus, a PCI-Express (PCI-e) bus, a Small Computer SystemInterface (SCSI) bus, and the like.

Network interface 430 may be a computer hardware component that connectscomputing device 105 to a computer network (e.g., network 115). Networkinterface 430 may connect computing device 105 to a computer network viaa wired or wireless connection. Network interface 430 may operate inconjunction with a wireless transmitter/receiver and/or transceiver (notshown) that is configured to operate in accordance with one or morewireless standards. The wireless transmitter/receiver and/or transceivermay be configured to operate in accordance with a wirelesscommunications standard, such as the IEEE 802.11-2007 standard (802.11),the Bluetooth standard, and/or any other like wireless standards. Thecommunications port may be configured to operate in accordance with awired communications protocol, such as a serial communications protocol(e.g., the Universal Serial Bus (USB), FireWire, Serial DigitalInterface (SDI), and/or other like serial communications protocols), aparallel communications protocol (e.g., IEEE 1284, Computer AutomatedMeasurement And Control (CAMAC), and/or other like parallelcommunications protocols), and/or a network communications protocol(e.g., Ethernet, token ring, Fiber Distributed Data Interface (FDDI),and/or other like network communications protocols). The networkinterface 430 may also include one or more virtual network interfacesconfigured to operate with application 465 and/or other likeapplications.

I/O interface 440 may be a computer hardware component that providescommunication between the computing device 105 and one or more otherdevices. The I/O interface 440 may include one or more user interfacesdesigned to enable user interaction with the computing device 105 and/orperipheral component interfaces designed to provide interaction betweenthe computing device 105 and one or more peripheral components. Userinterfaces may include, but are not limited to a physical keyboard orkeypad, a touchpad, a speaker, a microphone, etc. Peripheral componentinterfaces may include, but are not limited to, a non-volatile memoryport, a universal serial bus (USB) port, an audio jack, and a powersupply interface.

As discussed above, computing devices 105 may also include a transmitterand receiver or a transceiver (not shown). The transmitter may be anytype of hardware device that generates or otherwise produces radio wavesin order to communicate with one or more other devices. The transmittermay be coupled with an antenna (not shown) in order to transmit data toone or more other devices. The transmitter may be configured to receivedigital data from one or more components of computing devices 105 viabus 420, and convert the received digital data into an analog signal fortransmission over an air interface. The receiver may be any type ofhardware device that can receive and convert a signal from a modulatedradio wave into usable information, such as digital data. The receivermay be coupled with the antenna (not shown) in order to capture radiowaves. The receiver may be configured to send digital data convertedfrom a captured radio wave to one or more other components of mobileterminal 105 via bus 420. In embodiments where a transceiver (not shown)is included with computing devices 105, the transceiver may be a singlecomponent configured to provide the functionality of a transmitter and areceiver as discussed above.

FIG. 3C illustrates the components of wand module 200, in accordancewith other various example embodiments. As shown, wand module 200 mayinclude first devices 215, battery 305, sensors 306, I/O interface 307,processor 310, device interface module 315, bus 320, I/O bus 325,communication module 330, and memory 350. Furthermore, during operation,the wand module 200 of FIG. 3C includes the device interface module 315and spell module 300, which includes the spell determination module 465,which includes the processes 400-600. In some embodiments, wand module200 may include many more components than those shown in FIG. 3C.However, it is not necessary that all of these generally conventionalcomponents be shown in order to disclose the example embodiments.

FIG. 3C illustrates the internal components of wand module 200 that iscapable of performing the various spell definition and spelldetermination processes as described above as being performed by thecomputing device 105 (see e.g., the description of FIGS. 1A-1E). Thus,the various components as described above with regard to FIGS. 3A-3B maybe the same or similar to those shown in FIG. 3C.

FIG. 4 illustrates a process 400 for spell generation, in accordancewith various embodiments. In various embodiments, the process 400 may beimplemented as application that may be executed by a processor ofcomputing device 105 and/or wand module 200. For illustrative purposes,the operations of process 400 will be described as being performed bythe computing device 105 (e.g., the example embodiments shown anddiscussed with regard to FIGS. 1A, 1C, and 3A-3B) and/or the wand module200 (e.g., the example embodiments shown and discussed with regard toFIGS. 1B and 3C), however, it should be noted that other similar devicesmay operate the process 400 as described below. While particularexamples and orders of operations are illustrated in FIG. 4, in variousembodiments, these operations may be re-ordered, broken into additionaloperations, combined, and/or omitted altogether.

Referring to FIG. 4, at operation 1405, the computing device 105 (or thewand module 200) may be configured with the definition of one or moregestures to be performed using the wand 125. The one or more gesturesmay include one or more bodily movements, one or more physical inputs(e.g., button presses, biometric data, etc.), one or more voicecommands, completion of one or more tasks, and the like. In variousembodiments, defining the one or more gestures may also include defininga sequence in which the one or more gestures are required to beperformed.

At operation 1410, the computing device 105 (or the wand module 200) maybe configured with the definition of a spell output and (optionally)another spell output to be associated with the defined one or moregestures. The defined spell output may include one or more firstinstructions for activating one or more first devices and/or one or moresecond instructions for activating one or more second devices. Thedefined spell output may be used to indicate to a user of the wand 125that the one or more defined gestures have been performed properly afterthe spell has been created. The other spell output may include one ormore other first instructions for activating one or more first devicesand/or one or more other second instructions for activating one or moresecond devices, wherein the one or more first instructions are differentthan the one or more other first instructions and/or the one or moresecond instructions are different than the one or more other secondinstructions. The other spell output may be used to indicate to a userof the wand 125 that the one or more defined gestures have not beenperformed properly and/or that a degree of similarity between thedefined gestures and the performed gestures is below a threshold.Furthermore, in some embodiments, the computing device 105 (or the wandmodule 200) may be configured with the definition of third instructions,which are to be used for updating, altering, and/or adjusting a userprofile based on a game associated with the defined spell output. Suchthird instructions may indicate various game play parameters/points tobe adjusted based on proper or improper performance of the one or moredefined gestures.

At operation 1415, the computing device 105 (or the wand module 200) maybe configured with the definition of a desired time period forperforming the one or more gestures. The desired time period may be atime in which the one or more defined gestures are required to beperformed (within a certain margin of error) and/or a time period inwhich each of the one or more gestures are to be performed. For example,the defined period of time may require that the one or more gestures becomplete within one minute, and/or that each gesture of the one or moregestures must be performed within 200 milliseconds of each other.

At operation 1420, the computing device 105 (or the wand module 200) maybe configured with the definition of a ROE 130 for the spell output tobe applied. Defining the ROE 130 may include defining a size and/orshape of the ROE 130. At operation 1425, the computing device 105 (orthe wand module 200) may be configured with the definition of a spelloutput intensity based on a desired position within the ROE 130. Invarious embodiments, proximity of the wand 125 to an associated objector device, such as an IoT device, may be required in order for the spellto have an effect. For example, an “open door” spell may have no effectunless the wand 125 is within a specified distance a door (e.g., 5 feet)due to limitations of the hardware devices of the wand 125 (e.g.,transmission power, etc.) or due to limitations of the gamingenvironment 100 (e.g., electromagnetic interference, etc.). Therefore,the ROE 130 may be defined for the spell output in order for the definedspell output to have the desired effect. In some embodiments, the spelloutput intensity may be used to define requirements for the spell tohave an effect. For example, the “open door” spell may have an effectwhen the wand 125 is within a specified distance of the door (e.g., 5feet), but for certain game play design choices, the game operator orother entity may require that the wand 125 be at a desired distance fromthe door (e.g., 3 feet) in order to obtain the desired effect. By way ofanother example, a spell for a game may be defined to have a desiredvirtual property/points effect on another player when the spell isperformed by the wand 125A and another wand 125B is located at a desiredposition (e.g., spatial coordinates (X,Y,Z)) within the ROE 130. In thiscase, the spell may have an attenuated or otherwise decreased virtualproperty/points effect based on how close or far the other wand 125B isfrom the desired position within the ROE 130. Furthermore, in someembodiments, defining the ROE 130 may also include defining a desiredalteration to the spell output and/or spell output intensity when one ormore auxiliary devices are proximate to the wand 125, which may be doneby associating one or more auxiliary device identifiers or auxiliarydevice types with the spell output. In such embodiments, an incrementamount for incrementing an auxiliary device counter or a decrementamount for decrementing an auxiliary device counter may also be defined.

In some embodiments, the ROE 130 may be used to indicate an amount ofgame play properties/points to be used and/or applied against otherusers, etc. In such embodiments, defining the ROE 130 may includedefining a desired distance and/or angle relative to the wand 125 inwhich to apply the defined spell output. In various embodiments,different spell intensities may be defined to correspond with variousspatial coordinates, such as Cartesian coordinates, geographiccoordinates (e.g., latitude and longitude), GPS coordinates, and/orother like points within the ROE 130. For example, the ROE 130 of wand125 for a spell may be defined as a cone having a height of 5 feet,wherein a maximum spell intensity may be applied to devices 101 and/orother wands 125 that are within 3 feet from the wand 125. In suchembodiments, a reduced or attenuated spell intensity may be defined fordevices 101 and/or other wands 125 that are greater than 3 feet from thewand 125. In some embodiments, an attenuation factor or attenuationalgorithm may be used to calculate how much the spell output intensityis to be reduced or attenuated for devices 101 and/or other wands 125that are greater than defined distance from the wand 125 (e.g., greaterthan 3 feet in the example). It should be noted that, although thecomputing device 105 (or the wand module 200) may define a ROE 130 forthe spell output, in various embodiments, the defined ROE 130 may beadjusted based on a user profile and/or an auxiliary device identifier.Accordingly, in various embodiments, at operations 1410 and 1420-1430,the computing device 105 (or the wand module 200) may define one or moreROE adjustment factors that may be used for adjusting the ROE 130 and/orthe spell output intensity.

At operation 1430, the computing device 105 (or the wand module 200) maygenerate a defined spell sequence based on the defined one or moregestures. In various embodiments, generating the defined spell sequencemay include converting the one or more defined gestures into a markuplanguage, a hypertext language, a text file, firmware, middleware,microcode, hardware description languages, or any combination thereofthat may be executed or otherwise interpreted by the computing device105 (or the wand module 200).

At operation 1435, the computing device 105 (or the wand module 200) mayprovide the generated spell sequence to the wand 125 for confirmation ofthe spell sequence. At operation 1440, the computing device 105 (or thewand module 200) may determine whether the user of the wand 125performed the defined one or more gestures properly or as defined by thegenerated spell sequence. If the computing device 105 (or the wandmodule 200) determines at operation 1440 that the user did perform thedefined one or more gestures properly, then the computing device 105proceeds to operation 1445 to store the generated spell sequence inassociation with the defined spell output. In some embodiments, when theuser performs the defined one or more gestures properly, the computingdevice 105 (or the wand module 200) may issue one or more firstinstructions to activate one or more first devices and/or issue one ormore second instructions to activate one or more second devices. Thesefirst instructions and/or second instructions may be the same as thefirst instructions and/or second instructions delineated by the definedspell output. In some embodiments, the first instructions and/or secondinstructions issued in response to proper performance of the one or moredefined gestures may be a predefined set of instructions used forconfirming the performance of a newly defined spell. Such firstinstructions and/or second instructions may be based on one or more gamedesign choices.

If the computing device 105 (or the wand module 200) determines atoperation 1440 that the user did not perform the defined one or moregestures properly, then the computing device 105 (or the wand module200) proceeds back to operation 1435 to provide the generated spellsequence to the wand 125. In some embodiments, if the computing device105 (or the wand module 200) determines that the user did not performthe defined one or more gestures properly, prior to proceeding back tooperation 1435, the computing device 105 (or the wand module 200) mayissue one or more first instructions and/or second instructions whichindicate that the user did not perform the defined one or more gesturesproperly. Such first instructions and/or second instructions may bebased on one or more game design choices. In some embodiments, the firstinstructions and/or second instructions issued in response to improperperformance of the one or more defined gestures may be the same orsimilar to the other first instructions and/or the other secondinstructions of the other spell output defined at operation 1425.

At operation 1445, the computing device 105 (or the wand module 200) maystore the generated spell sequence as a defined spell sequence inassociation with the defined spell output, defined other spell output,defined period of time, defined region of effect, and/or the definedspell output intensity. The aforementioned spell attributes may bestored in one or more databases associated with the computing device105, the wand 125, and/or the accounting server 120 according to knownmethods.

At operation 1450, the computing device 105 (or the wand module 200) mayprovide an indicator indicating the availability of the defined spell,which provides the defined spell output at the defined spell outputintensity when the one or more gestures are performed using the wand125. In some embodiments, the indicator may be in the form of anelectronic notification, such as popup window, a push notification, anemail, a text message, and/or any other like indicators. In someembodiments, the indicator may be the activation of one or more firstdevices and/or one or more second devices that are the same or similaras discussed with regard to operations 1435-1445. It should be notedthat operation 1450 is optional and may be omitted in some embodiments.Moreover, in some embodiments, the indicator may be provided to anotherwand module 200 and/or another computing device 105. In suchembodiments, the indicator may not be activated until the created spellis discovered by the user of the other wand module 200 and/or the othercomputing device 105 according to the example embodiment described withregard to process 500 of FIG. 5.

Furthermore, it should be noted that in embodiments where the process400 is performed by the computing device 105, the various operationsdescribed above may be defined using a user interface displayed on adisplay device associated with the computing device 105. The userinterface may include one or more graphical control elements (e.g.,radio boxes, text boxes/fields, etc.) within a webpage. In suchembodiments, a user may be able to create new spells by entering thevarious gestures, spell outputs, spell output intensities, etc., and/orby describing the various features of the spell. In other embodimentswhere the process 400 is performed by the computing device 105, thevarious operations described above may be defined utilizing the wand 125in combination with the computing device 105. In such embodiments, theone or more gestures to be performed are defined by performing the oneor more gestures using the wand, and the spell output to be associatedwith the one or more gestures is defined by a voice command, activatingthe one or more first devices, and/or activating the one or more seconddevices. The voice commands, first device activations, and/or seconddevice activations may be confirmed using a user interface displayed bythe computing device 105. In other embodiments where the process 400 isperformed by only using the wand 125, the various operations describedabove may be defined utilizing the wand 125 wherein the one or moregestures to be performed are defined by performing the one or moregestures using the wand, and the spell output to be associated with theone or more gestures is defined by at least one of a voice command,activating the one or more first devices, and activating the one or moresecond devices.

In various embodiments, once a spell has been created, the spell can betransferred to one or more desired users, or may be dynamically assignedto one or more users by the accounting server 120, the spelldetermination module 465 of the computing device 105 and/or the wandmodule 200 based on a game design, player status, time of day, wandlocation, presence of other players, and the like. In some embodiments,the assignment and/or transfer of one or more spells may be accomplishedby obtaining an image code that may be printed on paper, cardboard, andthe like, or displayed on a display device. In such embodiments, theimage code may be obtained by a scanning a bar code, a quick response(QR) code, and/or an image, using an image sensor of the computingdevice 105. In some embodiments, the image code itself may comprise anencoded spell or spell sequence, while in other embodiments, the imagecode may comprise a webpage address or other like identifier, which maydirect the computing device 105 to a location where the spell or spellsequence may be obtained. It should be noted that in some embodiments, auser may not be able to actually cast the newly created spell, as thenewly created spell may require game play criteria to which the userdoes not have access, such as the completion of task, acquiring one ormore auxiliary devices, and/or require game play properties/points thatthe user has not yet attained/accumulated. Furthermore, in someembodiments, process 400 may include an optional “testing phase”, whichmay allow the user of the wand 125 to practice performing variousgesture combinations prior to creating the spell.

FIG. 5 illustrates a process 500 for spell discovery, in accordance withvarious embodiments. In various embodiments, the process 500 may beimplemented as application that may be executed by a processor ofcomputing device 105 and/or wand module 200. For illustrative purposes,the operations of process 500 will be described as being performed bythe computing device 105 (e.g., the example embodiments shown anddiscussed with regard to FIGS. 1A, 1C, and 3A-3B) and/or the wand module200 (e.g., the example embodiments shown and discussed with regard toFIGS. 1B and 3C), however, it should be noted that other similar devicesmay operate the process 500 as described below. While particularexamples and orders of operations are illustrated in FIG. 5, in variousembodiments, these operations may be re-ordered, broken into additionaloperations, combined, and/or omitted altogether.

Referring to FIG. 5, at operation 1505, the computing device 105 (or thewand module 200) may receive a spell associated with a defined spellsequence and a defined spell output. In embodiments where the wand 125is coupled with the computing device 105 (e.g., the example embodimentsshown and discussed with regard to FIGS. 1A, 1C, and 3A-3B), thecomputing device 105 may obtain and store the defined spell from a gameoperator as described herein. In embodiments where the wand 125 is notcoupled with the computing device 105 (e.g., e.g., the exampleembodiments shown and discussed with regard to FIGS. 1B and 3C), thewand module 200 of the wand may obtain and store the defined spell froma game operator.

At operation 1510, the computing device 105 may capture or otherwisedetermine one or more gestures performed using the wand 125. Atoperation 1515, the computing device 105 (or the wand module 200)determines whether the one or more performed gestures are equal to, orsubstantially similar to, the one or more defined gestures. Inembodiments where the wand 125 is coupled with the computing device 105(e.g., as shown in FIGS. 1A, 1C, and 3A-3B), the wand module 200 of thewand 125 may capture the one or more performed gestures utilizing theone or more sensors 306 and the spell module 300, and communicate aspell sequence based on the one or more performed gestures to thecomputing device 105 for spell determination, as described herein. Inembodiments where the wand 125 is not coupled with the computing device105 (e.g., as shown in FIGS. 1B and 3C), the wand module 200 of the wand125 may capture the one or more performed gestures utilizing the one ormore sensors 306, and the spell module 300 may perform the spelldetermination as described herein.

If at operation 1515, the computing device 105 (or the wand module 200)determines that the one or more performed gestures are equal to, orsubstantially similar to, the one or more defined gestures (within acertain margin of error), the computing device 105 (or the wand module200) may proceed to operation 1520 to execute the defined spell output.If at operation 1515, the computing device 105 (or the wand module 200)determines that the one or more performed gestures are not equal to, ornot substantially similar to, the one or more defined gestures (within acertain margin of error), the computing device 105 (or the wand module200) may proceed back to operation 1510 to determine/capture one or moreperformed gestures using the wand 125.

At operation 1520, the computing device 105 (or the wand module 200) mayexecute the defined spell output by issuing one or more firstinstructions to activate one or more first devices and/or issuing one ormore second instructions to activate one or more second devices asdiscussed previously. At operation 1525, the computing device 105 (orthe wand module 200) may store the defined spell in association with auser profile of the user, or instruct the accounting server 120 to storethe defined spell in association with a user profile of the user. Itshould be noted that operation 1525 is optional, and thus, in variousembodiments operation 1525 may be omitted from process 500. The decisionto include operation 1525 in process 500 may be based on one or moredesign choices and/or game implementations.

It should be noted that the process 500 may be utilized for spelldiscovery. In various embodiments, spells may be provided to, orotherwise associated with a user, based on gaming parameters, such as auser playing a specific game that may be in a specific gamingenvironment 100 and/or by completing specific game-related tasks.Additionally, in various embodiments, one or more spells may be “gifted”to a user by a game operator or another user, while in some embodiments,one or more spells may be randomly assigned to a user, wherein theprocess 500 may be utilized to discover the gifted or randomly assignedspells.

FIGS. 6A-6B illustrate a process 600 for spell casting and/or spellresolution, in accordance with various embodiments. In variousembodiments, the process 600 may be implemented as application that maybe operated by computing device 105 and/or wand module 200. Forillustrative purposes, the operations of process 600 will be describedas being performed by the computing device 105 (e.g., the exampleembodiments shown and discussed with regard to FIGS. 1A, 1C, and 3A-3B)and/or the wand module 200 (e.g., the example embodiments shown anddiscussed with regard to FIGS. 1B and 3C), however, it should be notedthat other similar devices may operate the process 600 as describedbelow. While particular examples and orders of operations areillustrated in FIG. 6, in various embodiments, these operations may bere-ordered, broken into additional operations, combined, and/or omittedaltogether.

Referring to FIG. 6A, at operation 1605, the computing device 105 (orthe wand module 200) may obtain or otherwise determine a spell sequenceindicative of one or more performed gestures according the variousmethods described herein. At operation 1610, the computing device 105(or the wand module 200) may obtain or otherwise determine a pluralityof spells wherein each of the plurality of spells includes a definedspell sequence and a defined spell output. The plurality of spells maybe provided by a game operator (e.g., accounting server 120) or byanother like entity, or in various embodiments, the plurality of spellsmay be stored in a memory device and/or cloud storage space associatedwith the user of wand 125. In some embodiments, the computing device 105(or wand module 200) may query a database associated with a gameoperator to obtain the plurality of spells. In such embodiments, thecomputing device 105 (or wand module 200) may query the database using auser profile (or information contained within the user profile), whichmay indicate various game play parameters, subscription information,and/or other like user contexts, and the database may provide one ormore spells to the computing device 105 (or wand module 200) based onthe provided information.

At operation 1615, the computing device 105 (or the wand module 200) maydetermine whether the spell sequence matches any of the defined spellsequences of the plurality of spell sequences. If at operation 1615, thecomputing device 105 (or the wand module 200) determines that the spellsequence matches at least one of the defined spell sequences of theplurality of spell sequences, then the computing device 105 (or the wandmodule 200) may proceed to operation 1625 to determine a ROE 130 and aspell output intensity of the matching spell and/or associated with auser of the wand. If at operation 1615, the computing device 105 (or thewand module 200) determines that the spell sequence does not match atleast one of the defined spell sequences of the plurality of spellsequences, then the computing device 105 (or the wand module 200) mayproceed to operation 1620 to determine whether a degree of similarity isgreater than or equal to a threshold.

At operation 1620, the computing device 105 (or the wand 125) maydetermine whether a degree of similarity is greater than or equal to athreshold. The degree of similarity may indicate a number and/or orderof operations of the spell sequence that matches a number and order ofoperations of the defined spell sequence. For example, if a spellsequence requires a user to perform desired number of gestures in aspecific sequence, and the user performs one or fewer (or one or more)of the defined gestures, the degree of similarity may be represented asa character or integer indicating the amount of the gestures that wereperformed. In some embodiments, the degree of similarity may berepresented as a ratio of the number of performed gestures to the numberof defined gestures. In some embodiments, the degree of similarity mayindicate whether one or more gestures were performed out of order.Furthermore, it should be noted that the degree of similarity may beused to provide first instructions and/or second instructions, which mayindicate a missing gesture in the spell, insufficient authorization toperform the spell, the performance of the spell was done at anunauthorized location and/or spatial coordinates, and the like.

If at operation 1620, the computing device 105 (or the wand module 200)determines that the degree of similarity is greater than or equal to athreshold, then the computing device 105 (or the wand module 200) mayproceed to operation 625 to determine the ROE 130 and a spell outputintensity of the matching spell and/or associated with a user of thewand. If at operation 1620, the computing device 105 (or the wand module200) determines that the degree of similarity is less than thethreshold, then the computing device 105 (or the wand module 200) mayproceed back to operation 1605 to obtain a spell sequence indicative ofone or more preformed gestures. In various embodiments, the thresholdmay be a desired or predetermined amount set according to one or moregame design choices.

At operation 1625, the computing device 105 (or the wand module 200) maydetermine a ROE 130 and a spell output intensity of the matching spelland/or associated with a user of the wand. As described herein, a spelloutput may be associated with a defined ROE, and in some embodiments,the ROE 130 may be based on a user profile associated with a user of thewand 125 and/or various game play parameters. Thus, at operation 1625,the computing device 105 (or the wand module 200) may determine the ROE130 based on the defined ROE and the information contained in the userprofile. The ROE 130 may be set according to various calculations and/orgame play parameters. For example, in some embodiments, the ROE 130defined by the user profile may be weighted or more heavily favored thanthe defined spell output ROE 130, or vice versa. Additionally, in someembodiments, at operation 1625, the ROE 130 may be increased ordecreased according to various device parameters (e.g., battery usage,memory fragmentation, processor speeds, and the like) as describedherein.

At operation 1630, the computing device 105 (or the wand module 200) maydetermine whether one or more auxiliary devices are proximate to thewand 125. The computing device 105 (or the wand module 200) maydetermine whether one or more auxiliary devices are proximate to thewand 125 according to the position determination and/or triangulationmethods discussed herein. If at operation 1630, the computing device 105(or the wand module 200) determines that one or more auxiliary devicesare proximate to the wand 125, the computing device 105 (or the wandmodule 200) may proceed to operation 1635 to adjust the ROE 130 based onthe auxiliary device identifier(s) of the one or more auxiliary devicesthat are proximate to the wand 125. If at operation 1630, the computingdevice 105 (or the wand module 200) determines that one or moreauxiliary devices are not proximate to the wand 125, the computingdevice 105 (or the wand module 200) may proceed to operation 1640 todetermine whether one or more second devices 101 are within the ROE 130.

At operation 1635, the computing device 105 (or the wand module 200) mayadjust the ROE 130 based on the auxiliary device identifier(s) of theone or more auxiliary devices that are proximate to the wand 125. Asdiscussed previously, data packets included a signal that is broadcastby the auxiliary devices may include an identifier or other likeidentifying information, such as a device name (e.g., serial number),device type, position information, and any information that may beindicative of a service and/or a spell alteration provided by theauxiliary device. Accordingly, the computing device 105 (or the wandmodule 200) may be configured to extract the identifying informationfrom the data packets according to known methods and alter the ROE 130,spell output intensity, etc. according to the extracted information.

At operation 1640, the computing device 105 (or the wand module 200) maydetermine whether the spell output of the matching spell indicates toactivate the one or more second devices 101. If at operation 1640, thecomputing device 105 (or the wand module 200) determines that the spelloutput of the matching spell indicates to activate the one or moresecond devices 101, then the computing device 105 (or the wand module200) may proceed to operation 1645 (as shown in FIG. 6B) to determinewhether the one or more second devices 101 indicated by the spell outputare within the ROE 130. If at operation 1640, the computing device 105(or the wand module 200) determines that the spell output of thematching spell does not indicate to activate the one or more seconddevices 101, then the computing device 105 (or the wand module 200) mayproceed to operation 1660 (as shown in FIG. 6B) to determine whether thespell output indicates to activate one or more first devices 215.

Referring to FIG. 6B, at operation 1645, the computing device 105 (orthe wand module 200) may determine whether one or more second devices101 are within the ROE 130. The computing device 105 (or the wand module200) may determine whether the one or more second devices 101 (oranother wand 125) are within the ROE 130 according to the variousexample embodiments discussed previously. If at operation 1645, thecomputing device 105 (or the wand module 200) determines that one ormore second devices 101 (or another wand 125) are within the ROE 130,the computing device 105 (or the wand module 200) may proceed tooperation 1650 to determine a spell output target device from among theone or more second devices 101 within the ROE 130. If at operation 1645,the computing device 105 (or the wand module 200) determines that one ormore second devices 101 (or another wand 125) are not within the ROE130, the computing device 105 (or the wand module 200) may proceed tooperation 1660 to determine whether the spell output of the matchingspell indicates to activate the one or more first devices 215 of thewand 125 and/or the wand module 200.

At operation 1650, the computing device 105 (or the wand module 200) maydetermine a spell output target device from among the one or more seconddevices within the ROE 130 according to the position determinationmethods and/or triangulation methods described herein. At operation1651, the computing device 105 (or the wand module 200) may cast thematching spell by issuing one or more second instructions to the one ormore second devices indicated by the spell output of the matching spell.At operation 1660, the computing device 105 (or the wand module 200) maydetermine whether the spell output indicates to activate one or morefirst devices 215.

If at operation 1660, the computing device 105 (or the wand module 200)determines that the spell output of the matching spell indicates toactivate one or more first devices 215, the computing device 105 (or thewand module 200) may proceed to operation 1665 to cast the matchingspell by issuing one or more first instructions to the one or more firstdevices indicated by the spell output of the matching spell. If atoperation 1660, the computing device 105 (or the wand module 200)determines that the spell output of the matching spell does not indicateto activate one or more first devices 215, the computing device 105 (orthe wand module 200) may return to operation 1670 to instruct theaccounting server 120 to adjust a user profile of the user of the wand125 to reflect the casting of the spell.

At operation 1665, the computing device 105 (or the wand module 200) maycast the matching spell by issuing one or more first instructions to theone or more first devices 215 indicated by the spell output of thematching spell. At operation 1670, the computing device 105 (or the wandmodule 200) may instruct the accounting server 120 to adjust a userprofile of the user of the wand 125 to reflect the casting of the spell,such that the user profile reflects the issuance of the firstinstructions and/or the second instructions. In various embodiments, theaccounting server 120 may reduce/increase a user's game playpoints/property according to the cast spell. In some embodiments, thecomputing device 105 (or the wand module 200) may adjust the userprofile and provide the updated/adjust user profile to the accountingserver 120. After the computing device 105 (or the wand module 200)performs operation 1670, the computing device 105 (or the wand module200) may return back to operation 1605 to obtain or otherwise determinea spell sequence indicative of one or more performed gestures.

As described herein, the example embodiments provide apparatuses,systems, and methods for providing immersive interactive gamingexperiences using a handheld user interface device. Example embodimentsprovide that the handheld user interface devices may utilize alreadyexisting/deployed output devices and/or already existing gamingplatforms to provide gaming feedback to a user. Thus, the describedembodiments are not tied to a specific proprietary platform and/or aspecific physical/virtual environment.

Some non-limiting Examples are provided below.

Example 1 may include a wand comprising: at least one processor; one ormore sensors, communicatively coupled with the at least one processor,to detect one or more gestures wherein the one or more gestures aremovements performed using the wand by a user of the wand, and generatesensor data representative of the one or more gestures; a deviceinterface module to operate on the at least one processor to obtain,from the one or more sensors, the sensor data representative of the oneor more gestures; a spell module to operate on the at least oneprocessor to receive, from the device interface module, the sensor datarepresentative of the one or more gestures, and convert the sensor datarepresentative of the one or more gestures into a spell sequence; andwand communication module, communicatively coupled with the at least oneprocessor, to transmit the spell sequence to a computing device, andreceive, from the computing device, a spell output based on the spellsequence and a wand position.

Example 2 may include the wand of example 1, and/or any of the examplesdescribed herein, wherein the spell module is to transmit a firstinstruction to the device interface module to activate one or more firstdevices according to the spell output or the computing device is totransmit a second instruction to one or more second devices to activatethe one or more second devices.

Example 3 may include the wand of any of the preceding examples, and/orany of the examples described herein, wherein the one or more gesturesinclude at least one of a change in the wand position, a change in awand orientation, or a voice command issued by the user, wherein thewand position is a position of the wand relative to the one or moresecond devices and the wand orientation is an angle of the wand relativeto an object.

Example 4 may include the wand of any of the preceding examples, and/orany of the examples described herein, wherein the spell module is torecord the sensor data representative of the one or more gestures duringa period of time, and convert the sensor data representative of the oneor more gestures performed during the period of time into the spellsequence, and the sensor data representative of the one or more gesturesperformed outside of the period of time are excluded from the spellsequence or included in another spell sequence.

Example 5 may include the wand of any of the preceding examples, and/orany of the examples described herein, wherein the computing deviceincludes a spell determination module to operate on at least oneprocessor of the computing device to determine a spell from a pluralityof spells based on the spell sequence wherein each of the plurality ofspells is associated with a defined spell sequence, determine a spelloutput associated with the determined spell, and provide a message thatindicates the determined spell output.

Example 6 may include the wand of any of the preceding examples, and/orany of the examples described herein, wherein to determine the spell,the spell determination module is to compare the spell sequence with thedefined spell sequence for each of the plurality of spells, determine adegree of similarity between the spell sequence and the defined spellsequence of each of the plurality of spells, wherein the degree ofsimilarity indicates a number and order of operations of the spellsequence that matches a number and order of operations of the definedspell sequence, and select the spell wherein the spell has a greatestdegree of similarity among the plurality of spells.

Example 7 may include the wand of any of the preceding examples, and/orany of the examples described herein, wherein the spell determinationmodule is to determine the wand position relative to the one or moresecond devices, determine a spell output target device based on the wandposition wherein the spell output target device is at least one of theone or more second devices to which the wand is directed by the user,and determine a spell output intensity based on a distance between thewand position and a position of the spell output target device whereinthe spell output intensity indicates an intensity at which the one ormore first devices and the one or more second device are to beactivated.

Example 8 may include the wand of any of the preceding examples, and/orany of the examples described herein, wherein to determine the wandposition relative to the one or more second devices, the spelldetermination module is to obtain an identifier for each of the one ormore second devices, wherein each identifier indicates a device type anda device position of a corresponding one of the one or more seconddevices.

Example 9 may include the wand of any of the preceding examples, and/orany of the examples described herein, wherein to determine the wandposition relative to the one or more second devices, the spelldetermination module is to determine a region of effect for the wandbased on a user profile associated with the user wherein the region ofeffect defines an area in which the spell output is to be applied to theone or more second devices within the area, and the spell determinationmodule is to determine whether the one or more second devices are withinthe region of effect based on the device position indicated by theobtained identifier.

Example 10 may include the wand of any of the preceding examples, and/orany of the examples described herein, wherein the region of effect isdefined by a cone, wherein the cone has an area defined by a height anda base radius, and an apex of the cone originates from a portion of thewand.

Example 11 may include the wand of any of the preceding examples, and/orany of the examples described herein, wherein the spell output intensityis also based on the degree of similarity such that an increase in thedegree of similarity is to provide an increase in the spell outputintensity and a decrease in the degree of similarity is to provide adecrease in the spell output intensity.

Example 12 may include the wand of any of the preceding examples, and/orany of the examples described herein, wherein the device interfacemodule is to determine an amount of charge in a battery of the wand, andthe wand communication module is to provide the amount of charge to thecomputing device with the spell sequence, and the computing device is todetermine the spell output intensity based on the amount of charge.

Example 13 may include the wand of any of the preceding examples, and/orany of the examples described herein, wherein when the spell outputindicates to activate the one or more first devices, the firstinstruction is to activate the one or more first devices at the spelloutput intensity, to perform, based on the degree of similarity, one ofa desired operation which indicates that the spell sequence matched thedefined spell sequence associated with the spell, or an undesiredoperation which indicates that the spell sequence did not match thedefined spell sequence associated with the spell; and when the spelloutput indicates to activate the spell output target device, the secondinstruction is to activate the one or more second devices at the spelloutput intensity, to perform, based on the degree of similarity, one of,a desired operation which indicates that the spell sequence matched thedefined spell sequence associated with the spell, or an undesiredoperation which indicates that the spell sequence did not match thedefined spell sequence associated with the spell.

Example 14 may include the wand of any of the preceding examples, and/orany of the examples described herein, wherein the one or more firstdevices include at least one of one or more audio devices, one or morelight emitting diodes, one or more haptic feedback devices or one ormore actuators, and one or more heating elements, and the one or moresecond devices include at least one of one or more other computingdevices, one or more auxiliary devices, one or more Internet of Things(IoT) devices, one or more audio devices, one or more display devices,and at least one other wand.

Example 15 may include the wand of any of the preceding examples, and/orany of the examples described herein, wherein when the one or more firstdevices include the one or more audio devices, the one or more audiodevices include a Bluetooth headset.

Example 16 may include the wand of any of the preceding examples, and/orany of the examples described herein, wherein when the one or moresecond devices include the one or more display devices, the one or moredisplay devices include an augmented reality headset capable ofdisplaying the spell output.

Example 17 may include the wand of any of the preceding examples, and/orany of the examples described herein, wherein the first instruction isto instruct the one or more first devices to output a desired audiooutput when the one or more first devices include the one or more audiodevices; emit a desired light sequence when the one or more firstdevices include the one or more light emitting diodes; activate at leastone of a vibration and a mechanical motion when the one or more firstdevices include the one or more haptic feedback devices or the one ormore actuators; and heat the wand to a desired temperature when the oneor more first devices include the one or more heating elements.

Example 18 may include the wand of any of the preceding examples, and/orany of the examples described herein, wherein the second instruction isto instruct the one or more second devices to execute desired programcode when the one or more second devices include the one or more othercomputing devices; access one or more services associated with the oneor more IoT devices when the one or more second devices include the oneor more IoT devices; output a desired audio output when the one or moresecond devices include the one or more audio devices; output a desiredvideo output when the one or more second devices include the one or moredisplay devices; and record the spell output when the one or more seconddevices include the one or more other wands.

Example 19 may include the wand of any of the preceding examples, and/orany of the examples described herein, wherein when the one or moresecond devices includes the one or more auxiliary devices, the computingdevice is to obtain an auxiliary device identifier from each of the oneor more auxiliary devices wherein the auxiliary device identifierindicates to alter at least one of the spell output and the spell outputintensity, and the spell determination module is to alter the spelloutput and determine the spell output intensity based on the auxiliarydevice identifier.

Example 20 may include the wand of any of the preceding examples, and/orany of the examples described herein, wherein to obtain the auxiliarydevice identifier the computing device is to detect the one or moreauxiliary devices by way of a scan of a region surrounding the wand foran auxiliary device signal that is broadcast by the one or moreauxiliary devices wherein the auxiliary device signal includes theauxiliary device identifier.

Example 21 may include the wand of any of the preceding examples, and/orany of the examples described herein, wherein the computing device is todetect the at least one other wand, and when the computing devicedetects the at least one other wand, the computing device is to obtain awand signal from the at least one other wand wherein the wand signalindicates another spell output of the at least one other wand, whereinthe other spell output indicates an alteration to a user profile of auser operating the wand.

Example 22 may include the wand of any of the preceding examples, and/orany of the examples described herein, wherein the one or more sensorsinclude an accelerometer, a geomagnetic sensor, a gyroscope, amicrophone, and a biometric sensor. The biometric sensor includes atleast one of an infrared heart rate monitoring device, a fingerprint orhandprint scanning device, an eye scanning device, an electromyography(EMG) device, and an electroencephalograph (EEG) device.

Example 23 may include the wand of any of the preceding examples, and/orany of the examples described herein, wherein the one or more gesturesinclude an input of the biometric sensor such that the spell sequence isunique to the user, and one or more other gestures performed by anotheruser using the wand are unique to the other user.

Example 24 may include the wand of any of the preceding examples, and/orany of the examples described herein, wherein the accelerometer, thegeomagnetic sensor, and the gyroscope are to provide spatial coordinatesof the wand and the one or more gestures include a change in the spatialcoordinates of the wand.

Example 25 may include a wand comprising: at least one processor; one ormore sensors, communicatively coupled with the at least one processor,to detect one or more one or more gestures wherein the one or moregestures are movements performed using the wand by a user of the wand,and generate sensor data representative of the one or more gestures; adevice interface module to operate on the at least one processor toobtain, from one or more sensors, the sensor data representative of theone or more gestures; a spell module to operate on the at least oneprocessor to receive, from the device interface module, the sensor datarepresentative of the one or more gestures, and convert the sensor datarepresentative of the one or more gestures into a spell sequence,wherein the spell module includes a spell determination module todetermine a spell from a plurality of spells based on the spell sequencewherein each of the plurality of spells is associated with a definedspell sequence, determine a spell output associated with the determinedspell and based on a wand position, and provide the spell output by wayof at least one of a first instruction to the device interface module toactivate one or more first devices and a second instruction to a wandcommunication module to activate one or more second devices; and thewand communication module, communicatively coupled with the at least oneprocessor, to transmit the second instruction to the one or more seconddevices, and transmit the determined spell to an accounting server tocause the accounting server to alter a user profile associated with theuser of the wand based on the determined spell.

Example 26 may include the wand of any of the preceding examples, and/orany of the examples described herein, wherein the one or more gesturesinclude at least one of a change in the wand position, a change in awand orientation, or a voice command issued by the user, wherein thewand position is a position of the wand relative to the one or moresecond devices and the wand orientation is an angle of the wand relativeto an object.

Example 27 may include the wand of any of the preceding examples, and/orany of the examples described herein, wherein the spell module is torecord the sensor data representative of the one or more gestures duringa period of time, and convert the sensor data representative of the oneor more gestures performed during the period of time into the spellsequence, and the sensor data representative of the one or more gesturesperformed outside of the period of time are excluded from the spellsequence or included in another spell sequence.

Example 28 may include the wand of any of the preceding examples, and/orany of the examples described herein, wherein to determine the spell,the spell determination module is to compare the spell sequence with thedefined spell sequence for each of the plurality of spells, determine adegree of similarity between the spell sequence and the defined spellsequence of each of the plurality of spells, wherein the degree ofsimilarity indicates a number and order of operations of the spellsequence that matches a number and order of operations of the definedspell sequence, and select the spell wherein the spell has a greatestdegree of similarity among the plurality of spells.

Example 29 may include the wand of any of the preceding examples, and/orany of the examples described herein, wherein the spell determinationmodule is to determine the wand position relative to the one or moresecond devices, determine a spell output target device based on the wandposition wherein the spell output target device is at least one of theone or more second devices to which the wand is directed by the user,and determine a spell output intensity based on a distance between thewand position and a position of the spell output target device whereinthe spell output intensity indicates an intensity at which the one ormore first devices and the one or more second device are to beactivated.

Example 30 may include the wand of any of the preceding examples, and/orany of the examples described herein, wherein to determine the wandposition relative to the one or more second devices, the spelldetermination module is to obtain an identifier for each of the one ormore second devices, wherein each identifier indicates a device type anda device position of a corresponding one of the one or more seconddevices.

Example 31 may include the wand of any of the preceding examples, and/orany of the examples described herein, wherein to determine the wandposition relative to the one or more second devices, the spelldetermination module is to determine a region of effect for the wandbased on a user profile associated with the user wherein the region ofeffect defines an area in which the spell output is to be applied to theone or more second devices within the area, and the spell determinationmodule is to determine whether the one or more second devices are withinthe region of effect based on the device position indicated by theobtained identifier.

Example 32 may include the wand of any of the preceding examples, and/orany of the examples described herein, wherein the region of effect isdefined by a cone, wherein the cone has an area defined by a height anda base radius, and an apex of the cone originates from a portion of thewand.

Example 33 may include the wand of any of the preceding examples, and/orany of the examples described herein, wherein the spell output intensityis also based on the degree of similarity such that an increase in thedegree of similarity is to provide an increase in the spell outputintensity and a decrease in the degree of similarity is to provide adecrease in the spell output intensity.

Example 34 may include the wand of any of the preceding examples, and/orany of the examples described herein, wherein the device interfacemodule is to determine an amount of charge in a battery of the wand, andspell determination module is to determine the spell output intensitybased on the amount of charge.

Example 35 may include the wand of any of the preceding examples, and/orany of the examples described herein, wherein the wand communicationmodule is to provide, to the accounting server, the determined spell,the spell output target device, and the spell output intensity, whereinthe accounting server is to alter a user profile associated with theuser based on the determined spell, the spell output target device, andthe spell output intensity, and wherein the accounting server is toalter another user profile associated with another user based on thedetermined spell and the spell output intensity when the spell outputtarget device is another wand.

Example 36 may include the wand of any of the preceding examples, and/orany of the examples described herein, wherein when the spell outputindicates to activate the one or more first devices, the firstinstruction is to activate the one or more first devices at the spelloutput intensity, to perform, based on the degree of similarity, one of,a desired operation which indicates that the spell sequence matched thedefined spell sequence associated with the spell, or an undesiredoperation which indicates that the spell sequence did not match thedefined spell sequence associated with the spell; and when the spelloutput indicates to activate the spell output target device, the secondinstruction is to activate the one or more second devices at the spelloutput intensity, to perform, based on the degree of similarity, one of,a desired operation which indicates that the spell sequence matched thedefined spell sequence associated with the spell, or an undesiredoperation which indicates that the spell sequence did not match thedefined spell sequence associated with the spell.

Example 37 may include the wand of any of the preceding examples, and/orany of the examples described herein, wherein the one or more firstdevices include at least one of one or more audio devices, one or morelight emitting diodes, one or more haptic feedback devices or one ormore actuators, and one or more heating elements, and the one or moresecond devices include at least one of one or more computing devices,one or more auxiliary devices, one or more Internet of Things (IoT)devices, one or more audio devices, one or more display devices, and atleast one other wand.

Example 38 may include the wand of any of the preceding examples, and/orany of the examples described herein, wherein when the one or more firstdevices include the one or more audio devices, the one or more audiodevices include a Bluetooth headset.

Example 39 may include the wand of any of the preceding examples, and/orany of the examples described herein, wherein when the one or moresecond devices include the one or more display devices, the one or moredisplay devices include an augmented reality headset capable ofdisplaying the spell output.

Example 40 may include the wand of any of the preceding examples, and/orany of the examples described herein, wherein the first instruction isto instruct the one or more first devices to output a desired audiooutput when the one or more first devices include the one or more audiodevices; emit a desired light sequence when the one or more firstdevices include the one or more light emitting diodes; activate at leastone of a vibration and a mechanical motion when the one or more firstdevices include the one or more haptic feedback devices or the one ormore actuators; and heat the wand to a desired temperature when the oneor more first devices include the one or more heating elements.

Example 41 may include the wand of any of the preceding examples, and/orany of the examples described herein, wherein when the one or moresecond devices includes the one or more auxiliary devices, the wandcommunications module is to obtain an auxiliary device identifier fromeach of the one or more auxiliary devices wherein the auxiliary deviceidentifier indicates to alter at least one of the spell output and thespell output intensity, and provide the auxiliary device identifier tothe spell determination module with the spell sequence, and the spelldetermination module is to determine the spell output and the spelloutput intensity based on the auxiliary device identifier.

Example 42 may include the wand of any of the preceding examples, and/orany of the examples described herein, wherein the second instruction isto instruct the one or more second devices to execute desired programcode when the one or more second devices include the one or more othercomputing devices; access one or more services associated with the oneor more IoT devices when the one or more second devices include the oneor more IoT devices; output a desired audio output when the one or moresecond devices include the one or more audio devices; output a desiredvideo output when the one or more second devices include the one or moredisplay devices; and record the spell output when the one or more seconddevices include the one or more other wands.

Example 43 may include the wand of any of the preceding examples, and/orany of the examples described herein, wherein when the one or moresecond devices includes the one or more auxiliary devices, the wandcommunication module is to obtain an auxiliary device identifier fromeach of the one or more auxiliary devices wherein the auxiliary deviceidentifier indicates to alter at least one of the spell output and thespell output intensity, and the spell determination module is to alterthe spell output and determine the spell output intensity based on theauxiliary device identifier.

Example 44 may include the wand of any of the preceding examples, and/orany of the examples described herein, wherein to obtain the auxiliarydevice identifier the wand communication module is to detect the one ormore auxiliary devices by way of a scan of a region surrounding the wandfor an auxiliary device signal that is broadcast by the one or moreauxiliary devices wherein the auxiliary device signal includes theauxiliary device identifier.

Example 45 may include the wand of any of the preceding examples, and/orany of the examples described herein, wherein the wand communicationmodule is to detect the at least one other wand, and when the wandcommunication module detects the at least one other wand, the computingdevice is to obtain a wand signal from the at least one other wandwherein the wand signal indicates another spell output of the at leastone other wand, wherein the other spell output indicates an alterationto a user profile of a user operating the wand.

Example 46 may include the wand of any of the preceding examples, and/orany of the examples described herein, wherein the one or more sensorsinclude an accelerometer, a geomagnetic sensor, a gyroscope, amicrophone, and a biometric sensor, wherein the biometric sensorincludes at least one of an infrared heart rate monitoring device, afingerprint or handprint scanning device, an eye scanning device, anelectromyography (EMG) device, and an electroencephalograph (EEG)device.

Example 47 may include the wand of any of the preceding examples, and/orany of the examples described herein, wherein the one or more gesturesinclude an input of the biometric sensor such that the spell sequence isunique to the user, and one or more other gestures performed by anotheruser using the wand are unique to the other user.

Example 48 may include the wand of any of the preceding examples, and/orany of the examples described herein, wherein the accelerometer, thegeomagnetic sensor, and the gyroscope are to provide spatial coordinatesof the wand and the one or more gestures include a change in the spatialcoordinates of the wand.

Example 49 may include a computer-implemented method for creating aspell to be performed using a wand, the method comprising: defining, bya computing device associated with the wand, one or more gestures to beperformed, wherein the one or more gestures are movements performed bythe user using the wand; defining, by the computing device, a spelloutput to be associated with the one or more gestures and a wandposition wherein the spell output indicates at least one of a firstinstruction for activating one or more first devices and a secondinstruction for activating one or more second devices; generating, bythe computing device, a defined spell sequence based on the defined oneor more gestures; providing, by the computing device, the defined spellsequence to the wand, wherein the wand indicates to the user to performthe one or more gestures delineated by the defined spell sequence;receiving, by the computing device, a first indicator indicating thatthe user performed the one or more gestures delineated by the definedspell sequence; storing, by the computing device, the defined spellsequence in association with the defined spell output in response to thereceiving; and providing, by the computing device to the wand, a secondindicator indicating an availability of the spell that provides thedefined spell output when the one or more gestures are performed.

Example 50 may include the method of any of the preceding examples,and/or any of the examples described herein, further comprising:generating a third instruction based on the defined spell output whereinthe third instruction instructs an accounting server to alter a userprofile associated with the user according to the defined spell output.

Example 50 may include the method of any of the preceding examples,and/or any of the examples described herein, wherein the one or moregestures include at least one of a change in the wand position, a changein a wand orientation, or a voice command issued by the user, whereinthe wand position is a position of the wand relative to the one or moresecond devices and the wand orientation is an angle of the wand relativeto an object.

Example 51 may include the method of any of the preceding examples,and/or any of the examples described herein, further comprising:defining a period of time during which the one or more gestures are tobe performed in order to obtain the spell output.

Example 52 may include the method of any of the preceding examples,and/or any of the examples described herein, further comprising:defining a period of time during which the one or more gestures are tobe performed in order to obtain the spell output.

Example 53 may include the method of any of the preceding examples,and/or any of the examples described herein, further comprising:defining a region of effect for the defined spell output wherein theregion of effect defines an area in which the spell output is to beapplied to the one or more second devices within the area wherein aspell output intensity is based on a position of the one or more seconddevices within the region of effect wherein the spell output intensityindicates an intensity at which the one or more first devices and theone or more second device are to be activated.

Example 54 may include the method of any of the preceding examples,and/or any of the examples described herein, further comprising:defining a desired spell output intensity for the spell output based ona desired position within the region of effect such that the desiredspell output intensity is applied to the one or more second deviceshaving a position that is equal to the desired position; and determininganother spell output intensity for the spell output for at least oneother position within the region of effect such that the other spelloutput intensity is applied to the one or more second devices having aposition that is equal to the at least one other position, wherein theother spell output intensity is based on a first distance and a seconddistance, the first distance being a distance between the desiredposition and the other position and the second distance being a distancebetween the wand position and the other position, wherein the thirdinstruction instructs the accounting server to alter the user profileaccording to the defined spell output, the desired spell outputintensity, and the other spell output intensity.

Example 55 may include the method of any of the preceding examples,and/or any of the examples described herein, wherein the region ofeffect is defined by a cone, wherein the cone has an area defined by aheight and a base radius, and an apex of the cone originates from aportion of the wand.

Example 56 may include the method of any of the preceding examples,and/or any of the examples described herein, wherein the defining thespell output comprises: defining a first device type for the spelloutput such that the first instruction indicates to activate ones of theone or more first devices having a device type matching the definedfirst device type; and defining a second device type for the spelloutput such that the second instruction indicates to activate ones ofthe one or more second devices having a device type matching the definedsecond device type.

Example 57 may include the method of any of the preceding examples,and/or any of the examples described herein, wherein the defining thespell output further comprises: defining a desired audio output when thefirst device type includes one or more audio devices; defining a desiredlight sequence when the first device type includes one or more lightemitting diodes; defining at least one of a sequence of vibrations or asequence of mechanical motions when the first device type includes oneor more haptic feedback devices or one or more actuators; and defining adesired temperature when the first device type includes one or moreheating elements.

Example 58 may include the method of any of the preceding examples,and/or any of the examples described herein, wherein the defining thespell output further comprises: defining a desired program code forexecution when the second device type includes one or more computingdevices; defining a desired alteration to the spell output when thesecond device type includes one or more auxiliary devices; defining oneor more desired services to access via one or more IoT devices when thesecond device type includes the one or more IoT devices; defining adesired audio output when the second device type includes one or moreaudio devices; and defining a desired video output when the seconddevice type includes one or more display devices.

Example 59 may include the method of any of the preceding examples,and/or any of the examples described herein, wherein the desiredalteration to the spell output comprises: defining an increment amountfor incrementing an auxiliary device counter or defining a decrementamount for decrementing the auxiliary device counter; and defining analteration threshold, wherein the alteration to the spell output expireswhen the auxiliary device counter reaches the alteration threshold.

Example 60 may include the method of any of the preceding examples,and/or any of the examples described herein, further comprising:defining another spell output to be associated with the spell whereinthe other spell output indicates at least one of another firstinstruction and another second instruction, wherein the other spelloutput is to be performed when spell sequence generated based on a setof performed gestures does not match the defined spell sequence.

Example 61 may include the method of any of the preceding examples,and/or any of the examples described herein, wherein the computingdevice resides within a client computing device, and wherein the one ormore gestures to be performed and the spell output to be associated withthe one or more gestures are defined using one or more graphical controlelements within a webpage.

Example 62 may include the method of any of the preceding examples,and/or any of the examples described herein, wherein the computingdevice resides in the wand, and wherein the one or more gestures to beperformed are defined by performing the one or more gestures using thewand, and the spell output to be associated with the one or moregestures is defined by at least one of a voice command, activating theone or more first devices, and activating the one or more seconddevices.

Example 63 may include the method of any of the preceding examples,and/or any of the examples described herein, further comprising:providing the second indicator indicating the availability of the spellto another wand when the one or more gestures are performed.

Example 64 may include at least one non-transitory computer-readablemedium including instructions to cause a computing device, in responseto execution of the instructions by the computing device, to perform themethod according to any of the preceding examples and/or according toany of the examples described herein.

Example 65 may include a computer-implemented method for discovering aspell, the spell being performed by a user using a wand, the methodcomprising: receiving, by a computing device associated with the wand, aspell wherein the spell is associated with a spell sequence and a spelloutput, and the spell output is provided when one or more definedgestures delineated by the spell sequence are performed using the wand,and wherein the spell output indicates at least one of a firstinstruction for activating one or more first devices and a secondinstruction for activating one or more second devices; capturing, by thecomputing device, one or more performed gestures using the wand;determining, by the computing device, whether the one or more performedgestures match the one or more defined gestures; and when thedetermining determines that the one or more performed gestures match theone or more defined gestures, transmitting, by the processor, at leastone of the first instruction to the one or more first devices and thesecond instruction to the one or more second devices.

Example 66 may include the method of any of the preceding examples,and/or any of the examples described herein, the one or more firstdevices include at least one of one or more audio devices, one or morelight emitting diodes, one or more haptic feedback devices or one ormore actuators, and one or more heating elements, and the one or moresecond devices include at least one of one or more computing devices,one or more auxiliary devices, one or more Internet of Things (IoT)devices, one or more audio devices, one or more display devices, and atleast one other wand.

Example 67 may include the method of any of the preceding examples,and/or any of the examples described herein, wherein the receivingcomprises: scanning, using an image sensor of the computing device, animage code, wherein the image code comprises one of the spell or awebpage address for obtaining the spell.

Example 68 may include at least one non-transitory computer-readablemedium including instructions to cause a computing device, in responseto execution of the instructions by the computing device, to perform themethod according to any of the preceding examples and/or according toany of the examples described herein.

Example 69 may include a computer-implemented method for casting a spellto be performed using a wand, the method comprising: obtaining, by acomputing device, a spell sequence indicative of one or more performedgestures wherein the one or more performed gestures are movementsperformed by the user using the wand; obtaining, by the computingdevice, a plurality of spells according to a user profile associatedwith the user, wherein each of the plurality of spells includes adefined spell sequence and an associated spell output, wherein thedefined spell sequence defines one or more defined gestures to beperformed for obtaining the associated spell output, and wherein thespell output indicates at least one of a first instruction foractivating one or more first devices and a second instruction foractivating one or more second devices; determining, by the computingdevice, a matching spell of the plurality of spells by comparing thespell sequence with the defined spell sequence of each of the pluralityof spells; determining, by the computing device, a region of effect ofthe wand based on the user profile and a wand position wherein the wandposition is a position of the wand relative to the one or more seconddevices; determining, by the computing device, whether the one or moresecond devices are within the region of effect; and casting the spellincluding providing, by the computing device, at least one of the firstinstruction to the one or more first devices according to the spelloutput associated with the matching spell and the second instruction tothe one or more second devices according to the spell output associatedwith the matching spell and when the one or more second devices aredetermined to be within the region of effect.

Example 70 may include the method of any of the preceding examples,and/or any of the examples described herein, wherein the one or moregestures include at least one of a change in the wand position, a changein a wand orientation, and a voice command issued by the user, whereinthe wand position is a position of the wand relative to the one or moresecond devices and the wand orientation is an angle of the wand relativeto an object.

Example 71 may include the method of any of the preceding examples,and/or any of the examples described herein, further comprising:providing a third instruction based on the spell output to an accountingserver, wherein the accounting server is to alter the user profileaccording to the spell output.

Example 72 may include the method of any of the preceding examples,and/or any of the examples described herein, wherein the spell sequenceis captured during a defined period of time during for performing one ormore gestures.

Example 73 may include the method of any of the preceding examples,and/or any of the examples described herein, wherein the region ofeffect defines an area in which the spell output is to be applied to theone or more second devices within the area, and the method furthercomprises: determining a spell output intensity for the spell output,wherein the spell output intensity is based on a position of the one ormore second devices within the region of effect relative to the wandposition and the spell output intensity indicates an intensity at whichthe one or more first devices and the one or more second device are tobe activated.

Example 74 may include the method of any of the preceding examples,and/or any of the examples described herein, wherein the comparingcomprises: determining a degree of similarity between the spell sequenceand the defined spell sequence of each of the plurality of spells,wherein the degree of similarity indicates a number and order ofoperations of the spell sequence that matches a number and order ofoperations of the defined spell sequence; and adjusting the spell outputintensity based on the degree of similarity including decreasing thespell output intensity according to the number and order of operationsof the spell sequence that match the number and order of operations ofthe defined spell sequence.

Example 75 may include the method of any of the preceding examples,and/or any of the examples described herein, further comprising:determining an amount of charge in a battery of the wand; and adjustingthe spell output intensity based on the amount of charge.

Example 76 may include the method of any of the preceding examples,and/or any of the examples described herein, wherein the region ofeffect is defined by a cone, wherein the cone has an area defined by aheight and a base radius, and an apex of the cone originates from aportion of the wand.

Example 77 may include the method of any of the preceding examples,and/or any of the examples described herein, further comprising:determining a first device type for the one or more first devices; anddetermining a second device type for the one or more second deviceswithin the region of effect.

Example 78 may include the method of any of the preceding examples,and/or any of the examples described herein, wherein the providing thefirst instruction comprises: instructing the one or more first devicesto output a desired audio output when the first device type includes oneor more audio devices; instructing the one or more first devices tooutput a desired light sequence when the first device type includes oneor more light emitting diodes; instructing the one or more first devicesto output at least one of a sequence of vibrations or a sequence ofmechanical motions when the first device type includes one or morehaptic feedback devices or one or more actuators; and instructing theone or more first devices to output a desired temperature when the firstdevice type includes one or more heating elements.

Example 79 may include the method of any of the preceding examples,and/or any of the examples described herein, wherein the providing thesecond instruction comprises: instructing the one or more second devicesto output a desired program code for execution when the second devicetype includes one or more computing devices; instructing the one or moresecond devices to output one or more desired services to access via oneor more IoT devices when the second device type includes the one or moreIoT devices; instructing the one or more second devices to output adesired audio output when the second device type includes one or moreaudio devices; instructing the one or more second devices to output adesired video output when the second device type includes one or moredisplay devices; and instructing the one or more first devices or theone or more second devices to alter the spell output when the seconddevice type includes one or more auxiliary devices.

Example 80 may include the method of any of the preceding examples,and/or any of the examples described herein, wherein the altering thespell output comprises: determining whether an auxiliary device counterassociated with the one or more auxiliary devices has reached analteration threshold; altering the spell output according to a definedalteration when the auxiliary device counter is determined to not havereached to alteration threshold wherein the defined alteration is basedon a device type of the one or more auxiliary devices; and incrementingor decrementing the auxiliary device counter, wherein the alteration tothe spell output expires when the auxiliary device counter reaches thealteration threshold.

Example 81 may include the method of any of the preceding examples,and/or any of the examples described herein, wherein the plurality ofspells includes error spell associated with an error spell outputincluding, and the method further comprises: providing the error spelloutput when the comparing does not yield the matching spell.

Example 82 may include at least one non-transitory computer-readablemedium including instructions to cause a computing device, in responseto execution of the instructions by the computing device, to perform themethod according to any of the preceding examples and/or according toany of the examples described herein.

Example 83 may include a system comprising: an accounting server; awand; a computing device; and one or more second devices. The wandcomprises: at least one processor; one or more sensors, communicativelycoupled with the at least one processor, to detect one or more gestureswherein the one or more gestures are movements performed using the wandby a user of the wand, and generate sensor data representative of theone or more gestures; a device interface module to operate on the atleast one processor to obtain, from the one or more sensors, the sensordata representative of the one or more gestures; a spell module tooperate on the at least one processor to receive, from the deviceinterface module, the sensor data representative of the one or moregestures, and convert the sensor data representative of the one or moregestures into a spell sequence; and wand communication module,communicatively coupled with the at least one processor, to transmit thespell sequence to a computing device, and receive, from the computingdevice, a spell output based on the spell sequence and a wand position.The computing devices comprises a spell determination module to operateon at least one processor of the computing device to determine a spellfrom a plurality of spells based on the spell sequence wherein each ofthe plurality of spells is associated with a defined spell sequence,determine a spell output associated with the determined spell, andprovide a message that indicates the determined spell output; andwherein the spell module is to transmit a first instruction to thedevice interface module to activate one or more first devices accordingto the spell output or the computing device is to transmit a secondinstruction to one or more second devices to activate the one or moresecond devices.

Example 84 may include the system of any of the preceding examples,and/or any of the examples described herein, wherein the one or moregestures include at least one of a change in the wand position, a changein a wand orientation, or a voice command issued by the user, whereinthe wand position is a position of the wand relative to the one or moresecond devices and the wand orientation is an angle of the wand relativeto an object.

Example 85 may include the system of any of the preceding examples,and/or any of the examples described herein, wherein the spell module isto record the sensor data representative of the one or more gesturesduring a period of time, and convert the sensor data representative ofthe one or more gestures performed during the period of time into thespell sequence, and the sensor data representative of the one or moregestures performed outside of the period of time are excluded from thespell sequence or included in another spell sequence.

Example 86 may include the system of any of the preceding examples,and/or any of the examples described herein, wherein to determine thespell, the spell determination module is to compare the spell sequencewith the defined spell sequence for each of the plurality of spells,determine a degree of similarity between the spell sequence and thedefined spell sequence of each of the plurality of spells, wherein thedegree of similarity indicates a number and order of operations of thespell sequence that matches a number and order of operations of thedefined spell sequence, and select the spell wherein the spell has agreatest degree of similarity among the plurality of spells.

Example 87 may include the system of any of the preceding examples,and/or any of the examples described herein, wherein the spelldetermination module is to determine the wand position relative to theone or more second devices, determine a spell output target device basedon the wand position wherein the spell output target device is at leastone of the one or more second devices to which the wand is directed bythe user, and determine a spell output intensity based on a distancebetween the wand position and a position of the spell output targetdevice wherein the spell output intensity indicates an intensity atwhich the one or more first devices and the one or more second deviceare to be activated.

Example 88 may include the system of any of the preceding examples,and/or any of the examples described herein, wherein to determine thewand position relative to the one or more second devices, the spelldetermination module is to obtain an identifier for each of the one ormore second devices, wherein each identifier indicates a device type anda device position of a corresponding one of the one or more seconddevices.

Example 89 may include the system of any of the preceding examples,and/or any of the examples described herein, wherein to determine thewand position relative to the one or more second devices, the spelldetermination module is to determine a region of effect for the wandbased on a user profile associated with the user wherein the region ofeffect defines an area in which the spell output is to be applied to theone or more second devices within the area, and the spell determinationmodule is to determine whether the one or more second devices are withinthe region of effect based on the device position indicated by theobtained identifier.

Example 90 may include the system of any of the preceding examples,and/or any of the examples described herein, wherein the region ofeffect is defined by a cone, wherein the cone has an area defined by aheight and a base radius, and an apex of the cone originates from aportion of the wand.

Example 91 may include the system of any of the preceding examples,and/or any of the examples described herein, wherein the spell outputintensity is also based on the degree of similarity such that anincrease in the degree of similarity is to provide an increase in thespell output intensity and a decrease in the degree of similarity is toprovide a decrease in the spell output intensity.

Example 92 may include the system of any of the preceding examples,and/or any of the examples described herein, wherein the deviceinterface module is to determine an amount of charge in a battery of thewand, and the wand communication module is to provide the amount ofcharge to the computing device with the spell sequence, and thecomputing device is to determine the spell output intensity based on theamount of charge.

Example 93 may include the system of any of the preceding examples,and/or any of the examples described herein, wherein when the spelloutput indicates to activate the one or more first devices, the firstinstruction is to activate the one or more first devices at the spelloutput intensity, to perform, based on the degree of similarity, one of,a desired operation which indicates that the spell sequence matched thedefined spell sequence associated with the spell, or an undesiredoperation which indicates that the spell sequence did not match thedefined spell sequence associated with the spell; and when the spelloutput indicates to activate the spell output target device, the secondinstruction is to activate the one or more second devices at the spelloutput intensity, to perform, based on the degree of similarity, one of,a desired operation which indicates that the spell sequence matched thedefined spell sequence associated with the spell, or an undesiredoperation which indicates that the spell sequence did not match thedefined spell sequence associated with the spell.

Example 94 may include the system of any of the preceding examples,and/or any of the examples described herein, wherein the one or morefirst devices include at least one of one or more audio devices, one ormore light emitting diodes, one or more haptic feedback devices or oneor more actuators, and one or more heating elements, and the one or moresecond devices include at least one of one or more other computingdevices, one or more auxiliary devices, one or more Internet of Things(IoT) devices, one or more audio devices, one or more display devices,and at least one other wand.

Example 95 may include the system of any of the preceding examples,and/or any of the examples described herein, wherein when the one ormore first devices include the one or more audio devices, the one ormore audio devices include a Bluetooth headset.

Example 96 may include the system of any of the preceding examples,and/or any of the examples described herein, wherein when the one ormore second devices include the one or more display devices, the one ormore display devices include an augmented reality headset capable ofdisplaying the spell output.

Example 97 may include the system of any of the preceding examples,and/or any of the examples described herein, wherein the firstinstruction is to instruct the one or more first devices to output adesired audio output when the one or more first devices include the oneor more audio devices; emit a desired light sequence when the one ormore first devices include the one or more light emitting diodes;activate at least one of a vibration and a mechanical motion when theone or more first devices include the one or more haptic feedbackdevices or the one or more actuators; and heat the wand to a desiredtemperature when the one or more first devices include the one or moreheating elements.

Example 98 may include the system of any of the preceding examples,and/or any of the examples described herein, wherein the secondinstruction is to instruct the one or more second devices to executedesired program code when the one or more second devices include the oneor more other computing devices; access one or more services associatedwith the one or more IoT devices when the one or more second devicesinclude the one or more IoT devices; output a desired audio output whenthe one or more second devices include the one or more audio devices;output a desired video output when the one or more second devicesinclude the one or more display devices; and record the spell outputwhen the one or more second devices include the one or more other wands.

Example 99 may include the system of any of the preceding examples,and/or any of the examples described herein, wherein when the one ormore second devices includes the one or more auxiliary devices, thecomputing device is to obtain an auxiliary device identifier from eachof the one or more auxiliary devices wherein the auxiliary deviceidentifier indicates to alter at least one of the spell output and thespell output intensity, and the spell determination module is to alterthe spell output and determine the spell output intensity based on theauxiliary device identifier.

Example 100 may include the system of any of the preceding examples,and/or any of the examples described herein, wherein to obtain theauxiliary device identifier the computing device is to detect the one ormore auxiliary devices by way of a scan of a region surrounding the wandfor an auxiliary device signal that is broadcast by the one or moreauxiliary devices wherein the auxiliary device signal includes theauxiliary device identifier.

Example 101 may include the system of any of the preceding examples,and/or any of the examples described herein, wherein the computingdevice is to detect the at least one other wand, and when the computingdevice detects the at least one other wand, the computing device is toobtain a wand signal from the at least one other wand wherein the wandsignal indicates another spell output of the at least one other wand,wherein the other spell output indicates an alteration to a user profileof a user operating the wand.

Example 102 may include the system of any of the preceding examples,and/or any of the examples described herein, wherein the one or moresensors include an accelerometer, a geomagnetic sensor, a gyroscope, amicrophone, and a biometric sensor.

Example 103 may include the system of any of the preceding examples,and/or any of the examples described herein, wherein the one or moregestures include an input of the biometric sensor such that the spellsequence is unique to the user, and one or more other gestures performedby another user using the wand are unique to the other user.

Example 104 may include the system of any of the preceding examples,and/or any of the examples described herein, wherein the accelerometer,the geomagnetic sensor, and the gyroscope are to provide spatialcoordinates of the wand and the one or more gestures include a change inthe spatial coordinates of the wand.

Example 105 may include a system comprising: an accounting server, awand, and one or more second devices. The wand comprises: at least oneprocessor; one or more sensors, communicatively coupled with the atleast one processor, to detect one or more one or more gestures whereinthe one or more gestures are movements performed using the wand by auser of the wand, and generate sensor data representative of the one ormore gestures; a device interface module to operate on the at least oneprocessor to obtain, from one or more sensors, the sensor datarepresentative of the one or more gestures; a spell module to operate onthe at least one processor to receive, from the device interface module,the sensor data representative of the one or more gestures, and convertthe sensor data representative of the one or more gestures into a spellsequence, wherein the spell module includes a spell determination moduleto determine a spell from a plurality of spells based on the spellsequence wherein each of the plurality of spells is associated with adefined spell sequence, determine a spell output associated with thedetermined spell and based on a wand position, and provide the spelloutput by way of at least one of a first instruction to the deviceinterface module to activate one or more first devices and a secondinstruction to a wand communication module to activate one or moresecond devices; and the wand communication module, communicativelycoupled with the at least one processor, to transmit the secondinstruction to the one or more second devices, and transmit thedetermined spell to an accounting server to cause the accounting serverto alter a user profile associated with the user of the wand based onthe determined spell.

Example 106 may include the system of any of the preceding examples,and/or any of the examples described herein, wherein the one or moregestures include at least one of a change in the wand position, a changein a wand orientation, or a voice command issued by the user, whereinthe wand position is a position of the wand relative to the one or moresecond devices and the wand orientation is an angle of the wand relativeto an object.

Example 107 may include the system of any of the preceding examples,and/or any of the examples described herein, wherein the spell module isto record the sensor data representative of the one or more gesturesduring a period of time, and convert the sensor data representative ofthe one or more gestures performed during the period of time into thespell sequence, and the sensor data representative of the one or moregestures performed outside of the period of time are excluded from thespell sequence or included in another spell sequence.

Example 108 may include the system of any of the preceding examples,and/or any of the examples described herein, wherein to determine thespell, the spell determination module is to compare the spell sequencewith the defined spell sequence for each of the plurality of spells,determine a degree of similarity between the spell sequence and thedefined spell sequence of each of the plurality of spells, wherein thedegree of similarity indicates a number and order of operations of thespell sequence that matches a number and order of operations of thedefined spell sequence, and select the spell wherein the spell has agreatest degree of similarity among the plurality of spells.

Example 109 may include the system of any of the preceding examples,and/or any of the examples described herein, wherein the spelldetermination module is to determine the wand position relative to theone or more second devices, determine a spell output target device basedon the wand position wherein the spell output target device is at leastone of the one or more second devices to which the wand is directed bythe user, and determine a spell output intensity based on a distancebetween the wand position and a position of the spell output targetdevice wherein the spell output intensity indicates an intensity atwhich the one or more first devices and the one or more second deviceare to be activated.

Example 110 may include the system of any of the preceding examples,and/or any of the examples described herein, wherein to determine thewand position relative to the one or more second devices, the spelldetermination module is to obtain an identifier for each of the one ormore second devices, wherein each identifier indicates a device type anda device position of a corresponding one of the one or more seconddevices.

Example 111 may include the system of any of the preceding examples,and/or any of the examples described herein, wherein to determine thewand position relative to the one or more second devices, the spelldetermination module is to determine a region of effect for the wandbased on a user profile associated with the user wherein the region ofeffect defines an area in which the spell output is to be applied to theone or more second devices within the area, and the spell determinationmodule is to determine whether the one or more second devices are withinthe region of effect based on the device position indicated by theobtained identifier.

Example 112 may include the system of any of the preceding examples,and/or any of the examples described herein, wherein the region ofeffect is defined by a cone, wherein the cone has an area defined by aheight and a base radius, and an apex of the cone originates from aportion of the wand.

Example 113 may include the system of any of the preceding examples,and/or any of the examples described herein, wherein the spell outputintensity is also based on the degree of similarity such that anincrease in the degree of similarity is to provide an increase in thespell output intensity and a decrease in the degree of similarity is toprovide a decrease in the spell output intensity.

Example 114 may include the system of any of the preceding examples,and/or any of the examples described herein, wherein the deviceinterface module is to determine an amount of charge in a battery of thewand, and spell determination module is to determine the spell outputintensity based on the amount of charge.

Example 115 may include the system of any of the preceding examples,and/or any of the examples described herein, wherein the wandcommunication module is to provide, to the accounting server, thedetermined spell, the spell output target device, and the spell outputintensity, wherein the accounting server is to alter a user profileassociated with the user based on the determined spell, the spell outputtarget device, and the spell output intensity, and wherein theaccounting server is to alter another user profile associated withanother user based on the determined spell and the spell outputintensity when the spell output target device is another wand.

Example 116 may include the system of any of the preceding examples,and/or any of the examples described herein, wherein when the spelloutput indicates to activate the one or more first devices, the firstinstruction is to activate the one or more first devices at the spelloutput intensity, to perform, based on the degree of similarity, one of,a desired operation which indicates that the spell sequence matched thedefined spell sequence associated with the spell, or an undesiredoperation which indicates that the spell sequence did not match thedefined spell sequence associated with the spell; and when the spelloutput indicates to activate the spell output target device, the secondinstruction is to activate the one or more second devices at the spelloutput intensity, to perform, based on the degree of similarity, one of,a desired operation which indicates that the spell sequence matched thedefined spell sequence associated with the spell, or an undesiredoperation which indicates that the spell sequence did not match thedefined spell sequence associated with the spell.

Example 117 may include the system of any of the preceding examples,and/or any of the examples described herein, wherein the one or morefirst devices include at least one of one or more audio devices, one ormore light emitting diodes, one or more haptic feedback devices or oneor more actuators, and one or more heating elements, and the one or moresecond devices include at least one of one or more computing devices,one or more auxiliary devices, one or more Internet of Things (IoT)devices, one or more audio devices, one or more display devices, and atleast one other wand.

Example 118 may include the system of any of the preceding examples,and/or any of the examples described herein, wherein when the one ormore first devices include the one or more audio devices, the one ormore audio devices include a Bluetooth headset.

Example 119 may include the system of any of the preceding examples,and/or any of the examples described herein, wherein when the one ormore second devices include the one or more display devices, the one ormore display devices include an augmented reality headset capable ofdisplaying the spell output.

Example 120 may include the system of any of the preceding examples,and/or any of the examples described herein, wherein the firstinstruction is to instruct the one or more first devices to output adesired audio output when the one or more first devices include the oneor more audio devices; emit a desired light sequence when the one ormore first devices include the one or more light emitting diodes;activate at least one of a vibration and a mechanical motion when theone or more first devices include the one or more haptic feedbackdevices or the one or more actuators; and heat the wand to a desiredtemperature when the one or more first devices include the one or moreheating elements.

Example 121 may include the system of any of the preceding examples,and/or any of the examples described herein, wherein when the one ormore second devices includes the one or more auxiliary devices, the wandcommunications module is to obtain an auxiliary device identifier fromeach of the one or more auxiliary devices wherein the auxiliary deviceidentifier indicates to alter at least one of the spell output and thespell output intensity, and provide the auxiliary device identifier tothe spell determination module with the spell sequence, and the spelldetermination module is to determine the spell output and the spelloutput intensity based on the auxiliary device identifier.

Example 122 may include the system of any of the preceding examples,and/or any of the examples described herein, wherein the secondinstruction is to instruct the one or more second devices to executedesired program code when the one or more second devices include the oneor more other computing devices; access one or more services associatedwith the one or more IoT devices when the one or more second devicesinclude the one or more IoT devices; output a desired audio output whenthe one or more second devices include the one or more audio devices;output a desired video output when the one or more second devicesinclude the one or more display devices; and record the spell outputwhen the one or more second devices include the one or more other wands.

Example 123 may include the system of any of the preceding examples,and/or any of the examples described herein, wherein when the one ormore second devices includes the one or more auxiliary devices, the wandcommunication module is to obtain an auxiliary device identifier fromeach of the one or more auxiliary devices wherein the auxiliary deviceidentifier indicates to alter at least one of the spell output and thespell output intensity, and the spell determination module is to alterthe spell output and determine the spell output intensity based on theauxiliary device identifier.

Example 124 may include the system of any of the preceding examples,and/or any of the examples described herein, wherein to obtain theauxiliary device identifier the wand communication module is to detectthe one or more auxiliary devices by way of a scan of a regionsurrounding the wand for an auxiliary device signal that is broadcast bythe one or more auxiliary devices wherein the auxiliary device signalincludes the auxiliary device identifier.

Example 125 may include the system of any of the preceding examples,and/or any of the examples described herein, wherein the wandcommunication module is to detect the at least one other wand, and whenthe wand communication module detects the at least one other wand, thecomputing device is to obtain a wand signal from the at least one otherwand wherein the wand signal indicates another spell output of the atleast one other wand, wherein the other spell output indicates analteration to a user profile of a user operating the wand.

Example 126 may include the system of any of the preceding examples,and/or any of the examples described herein, wherein the one or moresensors include an accelerometer, a geomagnetic sensor, a gyroscope, amicrophone, and a biometric sensor, wherein the biometric sensorincludes at least one of an infrared heart rate monitoring device, afingerprint or handprint scanning device, an eye scanning device, anelectromyography (EMG) device, and an electroencephalograph (EEG)device.

Example 127 may include the system of any of the preceding examples,and/or any of the examples described herein, wherein the one or moregestures include an input of the biometric sensor such that the spellsequence is unique to the user, and one or more other gestures performedby another user using the wand are unique to the other user.

Example 128 may include the system of any of the preceding examples,and/or any of the examples described herein, wherein the accelerometer,the geomagnetic sensor, and the gyroscope are to provide spatialcoordinates of the wand and the one or more gestures include a change inthe spatial coordinates of the wand.

Although certain embodiments have been illustrated and described hereinfor purposes of description, a wide variety of alternate and/orequivalent embodiments or implementations calculated to achieve the samepurposes may be substituted for the embodiments shown and describedwithout departing from the scope of the present disclosure. Thisapplication is intended to cover any adaptations or variations of theembodiments discussed herein, limited only by the claims.

We claim:
 1. A wand comprising: at least one processor; one or moresensors, communicatively coupled with the at least one processor, todetect one or more one or more gestures wherein the one or more gesturesare movements performed using the wand by a user of the wand, andgenerate sensor data representative of the one or more gestures; adevice interface module to operate on the at least one processor toobtain, from the one or more sensors, the sensor data representative ofthe one or more gestures; a spell module to operate on the at least oneprocessor to receive, from the device interface module, the sensor datarepresentative of the one or more gestures, and convert the sensor datarepresentative of the one or more gestures into a spell sequence; and awand communication module, communicatively coupled with the at least oneprocessor, to transmit the spell sequence to a computing device, andreceive, from the computing device, a spell output based on the spellsequence and a wand position.
 2. The wand of claim 1, wherein the spellmodule is to transmit a first instruction to the device interface moduleto activate one or more first devices according to the spell output orthe computing device is to transmit a second instruction to one or moresecond devices to activate the one or more second devices.
 3. The wandof claim 2, wherein the one or more gestures include at least one of achange in the wand position, a change in a wand orientation, or a voicecommand issued by the user, wherein the wand position is a position ofthe wand relative to the one or more second devices and the wandorientation is an angle of the wand relative to an object.
 4. The wandof claim 3, wherein the spell module is to record the sensor datarepresentative of the one or more gestures during a period of time, andconvert the sensor data representative of the one or more gesturesperformed during the period of time into the spell sequence, and thesensor data representative of the one or more gestures performed outsideof the period of time are excluded from the spell sequence or includedin another spell sequence.
 5. The wand of claim 1, wherein the one ormore sensors include an accelerometer, a geomagnetic sensor, agyroscope, a microphone, and a biometric sensor.
 6. The wand of claim 5,wherein the one or more gestures include an input of the biometricsensor such that the spell sequence is unique to the user, and one ormore other gestures performed by another user using the wand are uniqueto the other user.
 7. The wand of claim 5, wherein the accelerometer,the geomagnetic sensor, and the gyroscope are to provide spatialcoordinates of the wand and the one or more gestures include a change inthe spatial coordinates of the wand.
 8. A wand comprising: at least oneprocessor; one or more sensors, communicatively coupled with the atleast one processor, to detect one or more one or more gestures whereinthe one or more gestures are movements performed using the wand by auser of the wand, and generate sensor data representative of the one ormore gestures; a device interface module to operate on the at least oneprocessor to obtain, from one or more sensors, the sensor datarepresentative of the one or more gestures; a spell module to operate onthe at least one processor to receive, from the device interface module,the sensor data representative of the one or more gestures, and convertthe sensor data representative of the one or more gestures into a spellsequence, wherein the spell module includes a spell determination moduleto determine a spell from a plurality of spells based on the spellsequence wherein each of the plurality of spells is associated with adefined spell sequence, determine a spell output associated with thedetermined spell and based on a wand position, and provide the spelloutput by way of at least one of a first instruction to the deviceinterface module to activate one or more first devices and a secondinstruction to a wand communication module to activate one or moresecond devices; and the wand communication module, communicativelycoupled with the at least one processor, to transmit the secondinstruction to the one or more second devices, and transmit thedetermined spell to an accounting server to cause the accounting serverto alter a user profile associated with the user of the wand based onthe determined spell.
 9. The wand of claim 8, wherein the spelldetermination module is to determine the wand position relative to theone or more second devices, determine a spell output target device basedon the wand position wherein the spell output target device is at leastone of the one or more second devices to which the wand is directed bythe user, and determine a spell output intensity based on a distancebetween the wand position and a position of the spell output targetdevice wherein the spell output intensity indicates an intensity atwhich the one or more first devices and the one or more second deviceare to be activated.
 10. The wand of claim 9, wherein to determine thewand position relative to the one or more second devices, the spelldetermination module is to obtain an identifier for each of the one ormore second devices, wherein each identifier indicates a device type anda device position of a corresponding one of the one or more seconddevices.
 11. The wand of claim 10, wherein to determine the wandposition relative to the one or more second devices, the spelldetermination module is to determine a region of effect for the wandbased on a user profile associated with the user wherein the region ofeffect defines an area in which the spell output is to be applied to theone or more second devices within the area, and the spell determinationmodule is to determine whether the one or more second devices are withinthe region of effect based on the device position indicated by theobtained identifier.
 12. The wand of claim 10, wherein the one or morefirst devices include at least one of one or more audio devices, one ormore light emitting diodes, one or more haptic feedback devices or oneor more actuators, and one or more heating elements, and the one or moresecond devices include at least one of one or more computing devices,one or more auxiliary devices, one or more Internet of Things (IoT)devices, one or more audio devices, one or more display devices, and atleast one other wand.
 13. The wand of claim 12, wherein the firstinstruction is to instruct the one or more first devices to output adesired audio output when the one or more first devices include the oneor more audio devices; emit a desired light sequence when the one ormore first devices include the one or more light emitting diodes;activate at least one of a vibration and a mechanical motion when theone or more first devices include the one or more haptic feedbackdevices or the one or more actuators; and heat the wand to a desiredtemperature when the one or more first devices include the one or moreheating elements.
 14. The wand of claim 12, wherein when the one or moresecond devices includes the one or more auxiliary devices, the wandcommunications module is to obtain an auxiliary device identifier fromeach of the one or more auxiliary devices wherein the auxiliary deviceidentifier indicates to alter at least one of the spell output and thespell output intensity, and provide the auxiliary device identifier tothe spell determination module with the spell sequence, and the spelldetermination module is to determine the spell output and the spelloutput intensity based on the auxiliary device identifier.
 15. The wandof claim 14, wherein the second instruction is to instruct the one ormore second devices to execute desired program code when the one or moresecond devices include the one or more other computing devices; accessone or more services associated with the one or more IoT devices whenthe one or more second devices include the one or more IoT devices;output a desired audio output when the one or more second devicesinclude the one or more audio devices; output a desired video outputwhen the one or more second devices include the one or more displaydevices; and record the spell output when the one or more second devicesinclude the one or more other wands.
 16. The wand of claim 15, whereinwhen the one or more second devices includes the one or more auxiliarydevices, the wand communication module is to obtain an auxiliary deviceidentifier from each of the one or more auxiliary devices wherein theauxiliary device identifier indicates to alter at least one of the spelloutput and the spell output intensity, and the spell determinationmodule is to alter the spell output and determine the spell outputintensity based on the auxiliary device identifier.
 17. The wand ofclaim 16, wherein to obtain the auxiliary device identifier the wandcommunication module is to detect the one or more auxiliary devices byway of a scan of a region surrounding the wand for an auxiliary devicesignal that is broadcast by the one or more auxiliary devices whereinthe auxiliary device signal includes the auxiliary device identifier.18. A computer-implemented method for creating a spell to be performedusing a wand, the method comprising: defining, with a computing deviceassociated with the wand, one or more gestures to be performed, whereinthe one or more gestures are movements performed by the user using thewand; defining, with the computing device, a spell output to beassociated with the one or more gestures and a wand position wherein thespell output indicates at least one of a first instruction foractivating one or more first devices and a second instruction foractivating one or more second devices; generating, by the computingdevice, a defined spell sequence based on the defined one or moregestures; providing, by the computing device, the defined spell sequenceto the wand, wherein the wand indicates to the user to perform the oneor more gestures delineated by the defined spell sequence; receiving, bythe computing device, a first indicator indicating that the userperformed the one or more gestures delineated by the defined spellsequence; storing, by the computing device, the defined spell sequencein association with the defined spell output in response to thereceiving; and providing, by the computing device to the wand, a secondindicator indicating an availability of the spell that provides thedefined spell output when the one or more gestures are performed. 19.The method of claim 18, further comprising: defining a region of effectfor the defined spell output wherein the region of effect defines anarea in which the spell output is to be applied to the one or moresecond devices within the area wherein a spell output intensity is basedon a position of the one or more second devices within the region ofeffect wherein the spell output intensity indicates an intensity atwhich the one or more first devices and the one or more second deviceare to be activated.
 20. The method of claim 19, further comprising:defining a desired spell output intensity for the spell output based ona desired position within the region of effect such that the desiredspell output intensity is applied to the one or more second deviceshaving a position that is equal to the desired position; and determininganother spell output intensity for the spell output for at least oneother position within the region of effect such that the other spelloutput intensity is applied to the one or more second devices having aposition that is equal to the at least one other position, wherein theother spell output intensity is based on a first distance and a seconddistance, the first distance being a distance between the desiredposition and the other position and the second distance being a distancebetween the wand position and the other position.
 21. Acomputer-implemented method for casting a spell to be performed using awand, the method comprising: obtaining, by a computing device, a spellsequence indicative of one or more performed gestures wherein the one ormore performed gestures are movements performed by the user using thewand; obtaining, by the computing device, a plurality of spellsaccording to a user profile associated with the user, wherein each ofthe plurality of spells includes a defined spell sequence and anassociated spell output, wherein the defined spell sequence defines oneor more defined gestures to be performed for obtaining the associatedspell output, and wherein the spell output indicates at least one of afirst instruction for activating one or more first devices and a secondinstruction for activating one or more second devices; determining, bythe computing device, a matching spell of the plurality of spells bycomparing the spell sequence with the defined spell sequence of each ofthe plurality of spells; determining, by the computing device, a regionof effect of the wand based on the user profile and a wand positionwherein the wand position is a position of the wand relative to the oneor more second devices; determining, by the computing device, whetherthe one or more second devices are within the region of effect; andcasting the spell including providing, by the computing device, at leastone of the first instruction to the one or more first devices accordingto the spell output associated with the matching spell and the secondinstruction to the one or more second devices according to the spelloutput associated with the matching spell and when the one or moresecond devices are determined to be within the region of effect.
 22. Themethod of claim 21, wherein the region of effect defines an area inwhich the spell output is to be applied to the one or more seconddevices within the area, and the method further comprises: determining aspell output intensity for the spell output, wherein the spell outputintensity is based on a position of the one or more second deviceswithin the region of effect relative to the wand position and the spelloutput intensity indicates an intensity at which the one or more firstdevices and the one or more second device are to be activated.
 23. Thewand of claim 22, further comprising: determining an amount of charge ina battery of the wand; and adjusting the spell output intensity based onthe amount of charge.
 24. The method of claim 21, further comprising:determining a first device type for the one or more first devices; anddetermining a second device type for the one or more second deviceswithin the region of effect.
 25. The method of claim 24, wherein theproviding the first instruction comprises: instructing the one or morefirst devices to output a desired audio output when the first devicetype includes one or more audio devices; instructing the one or morefirst devices to output a desired light sequence when the first devicetype includes one or more light emitting diodes; instructing the one ormore first devices to output at least one of a sequence of vibrations ora sequence of mechanical motions when the first device type includes oneor more haptic feedback devices or one or more actuators; andinstructing the one or more first devices to output a desiredtemperature when the first device type includes one or more heatingelements.